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The Desert Patrol 



































' 



















The bold baldy sprang straight upward—Chapter V. 








The Radio-Phone Boys Stories 

The 

Desert Patrol 

By 

JAMES CRAIG 



The Reilly & Lee Co. 
Chicago 





Printed in the United States of America 


/6v 



" -C. 


Copyright , 1025 
hy 

The Reilly & Lee Co. 


ill Rights Reserved 



The Desert Potrol 


AUG -3 1923 

©C1A752364 
M I 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I A Shot in the Night. 9 

II A Whispered Message. 19 

III A Watch in the Dark. 33 

IV Curlie Does Some Wire-Tap¬ 

ping . 42 

V A Race for a Rare Prize. 54 

VI An Important Discovery. 68 

VII “The Raiders! The Raiders!” 79 

VIII Clyde Wounded. 88 

IX Plotting a Way Out . 99 

X At the Zero Hour. 105 

XI Over the Top. 117 

XII One Over the Precipice. 124 

XIII A Strange Guide. 131 

XIV The Face in the Flood . 137 

XV Dark Shadows of Peril. 144 

XVI Lost in a Sandstorm. 150 

XVII Is This the Whisperer?. 161 

XVIII Clyde's Farewell to Colie.... 174 


















Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX Mystery, Thrills, Adventure. 181 

XX “They Have Come”. 189 

XXI Old Baldie’s Revenge. 195 

XXII The Whisperer's Mysteries Re¬ 
vealed . 206 





The Desert Patrol 


CHAPTER I 

A SHOT IN THE NIGHT 

Curlie Carson’s knees trembled. Half suffo¬ 
cated, he held his breath as if fearing someone 
might hear, and he did fear that very thing. His 
mind was in a whirl. Had he seen a head rise 
above the fallen spruce tree that lay a hundred 
paces above him? He thought he had, yet could 
not be quite sure. And if he had, if it appeared 
again, what then? With a thumb that trembled 
he noiselessly lifted the hammer of the power¬ 
ful rifle which his left hand gripped. 

It was night. All about him trees loomed. 
Giants of a mountain-side forest they were, for 
the sound of the woodsman’s axe had never been 
heard here. It was cold; a chill ran up his spine. 
His feet were benumbed. At two o’clock in the 
morning the air on the side of the mountain, 
9 


10 


The Desert Patrol 


eight thousand feet above the sea, is like the 
winter air of the prairie or the desert. 

The situation which confronted Curlie was 
fascinating and strange. To the right of him, 
not a hundred yards away, Ambrosio Chaves, 
a half Mexican whom Curlie suspected of being 
one of the most dreaded horse thieves in all the 
borderland between the United States and Mex¬ 
ico, lay hiding. It was part of Curlie’s present 
task, and purpose too, to defend this supposed 
bandit. If the head again appeared above that 
log; if the head were followed by hands and a 
rifle; if the rifle were lifted for a shot, he very 
much regretted to tell himself that it would be 
his duty to lift his own rifle and with an aim 
swift and sure, drop that mysterious stranger 
behind the log, drop him as he might a prowl¬ 
ing wolf. 

He would shoot the stranger, whom he knew 
not at all, to protect Ambrosio, whom he knew 
very well and whom he cordially hated. A 
strange situation indeed. As his mind dwelt 
upon it, he threw back his head as if to laugh. 


11 


A Shot in the Night 

He did not laugh. Instead, he dropped quite 
flat upon a bed of pine needles. His heart 
skipped a beat. Had he heard a movement to 
his left, or was it merely one of the horses mov¬ 
ing in the valley below? In such a situation, 
one takes few chances. He lay quite still. His 
eyes were still fixed upon the spot where the 
head had seemed to appear. It was fairly dark 
and hard to distinguish figures. One of the at¬ 
tacking party, if indeed they were to be attacked, 
might slip quite upon him before he was aware. 

“ Rotten business!” he thought to himself. 
“ But when you’ve put your hand to a thing, 
you’ve just naturally got to see it through — that 
is, if you’ve got any red blood in you.” 

Hidden in this same forest, that made a horse¬ 
shoe-like curve about the upper edge of a nar¬ 
row pocket of a valley, were seven boys and 
men. Five of these were practically outlaws. 
If not outlaws at that moment, they had, Curlie 
believed, already put themselves in a position to 
be made outlaws. These men, for the moment, 
Curlie was determined to defend. The one 


12 


The Desert Patrol 


other of the party was Clyde Hopkins, an honest 
young cowboy, Curlie’s companion. He too was 
ready to defend their position. Below them in 
a pole corral that was cleverly concealed with 
green branches, were some forty horses, colts 
and ponies. More than half these had been 
stolen, or at least Curlie supposed they had, by 
Ambrosio and his companions. Yet . it was 
Curlie’s purpose to help defend the outlaws in 
their possession of the horses. Put on top of 
all this the fact that Curlie, while not an officer 
of the law, was as near to it as one might well 
be. He was a member of the Secret Service of 
the Air, whose station was far below and to the 
right across ten miles of wind-blown, sand- 
strewn desert. And at this moment, in the midst 
of great peril, under the strangest of situations, 
he was, as far as he could see, acting in the strict 
line of duty. 

“ Mighty queer! ” he told himself. “ Mighty 
queer! Could hardly believe—” 

His thoughts were cut short. With a swift, 
noiseless motion his rifle slid into position. A 


13 


A Shot in the Night 

head had surely appeared above a fallen tree. 
The expected rifle had followed it. It had been 
pointed in a direction to the right of Curlie and 
was beginning to steady for a shot, when a puff 
of smoke suddenly leaped out of the dark. It 
came from Curlie’s rifle. There followed a 
slight clatter, as if a rifle had been dropped upon 
a log. Then, as before, all was silent. 

As if he himself had been shot, Curlie sud¬ 
denly rolled down the steep hillside. He did 
this to protect himself. The enemy might shoot 
at the spot from which he had fired. Fifteen 
feet lower down, he came to rest against a giant 
of the forest. For a full minute he did not 
move. Then, gliding stealthily forward, he 
found a position at about the same level as the 
one he had first occupied, but some ten yards 
to the right of it. From this point he could still 
see the fallen tree. For five minutes his eyes 
never left the spot. Then with a whispered, 
“ Hope I didn’t do him in,” he sank back to a 
position of repose. 

Lest my reader should begin at this point to 


14 


The Desert Patrol 


lose faith in his one-time hero, Curlie Carson, 
who carried himself so nobly and with such an 
upright character through the adventures told 
in “ Curlie Carson Listens In ” and “ The 
Yukon Trail,” let me assure you that he has not 
lost any of his sterling character, nor any of 
his bravery either. In fact, the undertaking in 
which he was engaged at this moment had 
involved him in more danger than any of his 
previous adventures and promised in the near 
future to lead him into dangers the like of which 
he had never before in all his eventful career 
come near to experiencing. 

As for Curlie, at this particular moment he 
was engaged in a series of reflections regarding 
the days that had just passed. As had been the 
case in some of his other adventures, it had been 
a whisper, a whisper floating in over the air, 
that had led him to his present position. At first 
this whisper had been vague and undefined, yet 
telling of something big going on down in the 
Great American Desert, close to the Mexican 
border. The radiophone was being used as an 


15 


A Shot in the Night 

aid by those who wished to thwart justice and 
rob others of their honest earnings. If this were 
the case, then here was a task for the members 
of the Secret Service of the Air, of whom Curlie 
was one. He had been sent to the desert to 
establish a listening-in post there and to dis¬ 
cover if possible whether or not such a post could 
be of real service to the American citizens who 
lived here and there, scattered over the desert 
and through the forests of mountain ranges. 

He had come. He had set his steel posts, like 
flagposts, high in air out in the desert. On these 
posts he had strung his aerials. Beneath the 
posts he had built a cabin of lumber and tar 
paper. There, with his powerful receiving and 
sending set at his elbow and with his head-piece 
drawn down over his ears, he had sat down to 
wait and to listen. 

The message of importance, which he had felt 
sure would at last come to him from the lips of 
the “ Whisperer,” that weird phantom-girl of 
the air, might, he knew quite well, have to do 
with any of a half dozen important affairs. It 


16 


The Desert Patrol 


might concern whiskey runners, bringing the 
rawest and rankest kind of poison across the 
line from Mexico, peddling it alike to white men 
and Indians. Natives, driven mad by this poison 
liquor, had committed frightful crimes. It might 
be his task to assist in searching out these law¬ 
breakers. Across that same international bound¬ 
ary line, from time to time Japanese and Chinese 
were smuggled. Perhaps the message would 
deal with this. Wild Mexican raiders, when 
least expected, crept across the border to steal 
cattle and horses from the scattered ranchers. 
Assisted by treacherous Indians who alone knew 
the trails of the desert mountain fastnesses, 
these bands were able to escape to Mexico with 
their booty. The radiophone could not but help 
them in arranging these raids. It might, how¬ 
ever, also lead to their undoing. 

What was the big thing that was to be his 
task? Curlie had asked himself this question 
over and over as the days passed. One thing 
surprised him: That was the way in which the 
radiophone was being adapted to the needs of 


A Shot in the Night 17 

the desert. In cities and thickly settled country 
places the radiophone was a luxury. 

In these wild, little-frequented spots, where 
the telephone and telegraph had not found their 
way and where the automobile was all but use¬ 
less, the radiophone was fast becoming a neces¬ 
sity. The lone ranger on the desert, the sheep- 
herder on the top of a mountain, the irrigation 
farmer on his little oasis, were one and all con¬ 
nected by the radiophone to the nearest settle¬ 
ment and to the whole world outside. 

Often and often, as the glorious music of 
some great symphony or grand opera came 
floating to him faintly from afar, Curlie caught 
it in his receiver and, having passed it through 
his many-stage amplifier, had sent it booming 
forth to gladden the hearts of those who sat in 
waste and silent places far from others of the 
human kind. At other times he had assisted in 
the search for men lost on the desert, or in 
bringing doctors to bedsides where they were 
greatly needed. 

All these services Curlie performed with the 


18 


The Desert Patrol 


best skill that was in him, but always he listened 
for that important message from the Whisperer. 

His motives for catching the message were 
two: He wished to do something in a big way. 
Nothing could so quickly establish the value and 
necessity of his station as this. He wished also 
to hear again the voice of the Whisperer. For 
months and months she had haunted his trail 
through the air. She had told him that her home 
was at the edge of this Great American Desert. 
He felt a great confidence that he would, sooner 
or later, on this desert come face to face with 
her. It will not seem strange, then, that after 
all these months of mystery he would be waiting 
eagerly for the word that might hasten the day 
when he might look at the mystery girl and say 
to himself with conviction, “ She is the one. 
She is the Whisperer.” 

Then came the day when the message thrilled 
out upon the air, the message that was to draw 
Curlie into such adventures as he had never 
before experienced. 


CHAPTER II 


A WHISPERED MESSAGE 

Curlie, lying here in hiding on the mountain 
side, had gone this far in recalling past events 
which had led up to his present rather strange 
position, when his keen ears detected some sound. 
Coming as it seemed from lower down and to the 
right, it at once set his nerves tingling. 

“ From the direction of the corral/’ he told 
himself in a tense whisper. 

For a moment he lay there silent, motionless, 
scarcely breathing. It had been but a faint 
sound, the rustling of a pine branch, perhaps. 
Not one of his confederates had noticed it, he 
felt sure of that. Only the keen, radio ears of 
a born radio detective could have done that. Yet 
there had been a sound, a movement. There was 
someone down there, he was quite sure of that. 

“ Can’t be Ambrosio,” he told himself. “ He’s 

19 


20 The Desert Patrol 

too sharp to give the location of the horses away 
like that.” 

The next instant the boy sat bolt upright and 
stared. There had come to his waiting ears a 
familiar sound: the sharp, high-pitched whinny 
of a pony. 

“ Canary! ” he whispered. “ Couldn’t mistake 
him from a thousand. He’s in danger, too, I’ll 
be bound. Never heard him say it just that way 
but once. That time two timber wolves were 
stalking him. 

“ No timber wolves this time,” he said grimly 
as he dropped upon hands and knees and, thrust¬ 
ing his rifle before him, began making his way 
silently down the hill in the direction from which 
had come the pony’s call for aid. “ No timber 
wolves,” he repeated; “ human wolves, that’s 
what, and the worst kind at that. Raiders that 
raid those of their own kind. Well, they sha’n’t 
have Canary.” 

Canary was a small blue mustang. Curlie had 
picked him up cheap out on the range. He had 
received many a throw and many a bruise before 


A Whispered Message 21 

he had convinced the wiry little beast that he 
meant well by him and that it was a great deal 
more fun to have a master riding on his back 
for company than to be wandering alone and 
unprotected across the desert. When at last the 
pony had learned this lesson, he had become an 
inseparable companion to the boy at his lonely 
post on the desert. He had proved himself the 
speediest, pluckiest, toughest little pony in all 
that broad stretch of mountain and desert. He 
would follow his master about and only a cor¬ 
ral, such as now surrounded him, could keep him 
from the boy’s side. 

He was Curlie’s first horse. Automobiles he 
had had and had managed well. He knew a little 
of airplanes, too. But these, he now knew, were 
mere machines, not in any way to be compared 
to a companion such as a horse, a creature of 
flesh and blood that could listen to you and 
understand as well as any human — sometimes 
better. 

“ Yes, yes, old pal,” he whispered, as the pony 
whinnied again, this time as if he was confident 


22 


The Desert Patrol 


that his call had been heard. “ Yes, yes, I’m 
coming. They won’t get you. They might have 
the others, though I don’t want that either, but 
you they shall never have.” 

All this time he was gliding silently downward 
over the pine-needle blanket that was soft and 
silent as a cover of eiderdown. 

After covering ten yards or more he paused 
to listen. A sound came to him. Closer than 
had been the other, it startled him. He might 
have come too close. There might be several of 
the raiders. He might be in danger of being 
ambushed. 

His eyes circled from right to left and from 
left to right, like a searchlight. Now he shifted 
his position ever so slightly. Directly below him 
were two giant fir trees. Behind these was a 
mass of green that by the darkness was turned 
to pitchy black. This black mass was a camou¬ 
flage to hide the strong poles that made up the 
horse corral. Behind this were the forty ponies 
and horses. 

“ Bars should be just at the right of those twin 


A Whispered Message 23 

firs,” he told himself. “ No use going closer. 
Too risky. Stay here. I can see anyone who 
comes up to those bars. Can’t let the horses out 
any other way. Let ’em try it; I’ll get ’em first 
crack.” 

Dropping flat upon the soft bed of needles, he 
cautiously moved his rifle forward to a resting 
place across the protruding root of a fir tree, 
then, with eyes and ears alert, waited for some¬ 
thing to happen. For full five minutes he 
remained thus. Not a sound came to him from 
near or far. The night air grew colder each 
moment. A breeze creeping up from the lower 
levels chilled him to the bone. 

“Boo!” he breathed. “Wish this night’s 
watch was over.” 

Since it was not over and would not be for 
some time to come, he settled himself as com¬ 
fortably as might be and gave himself again to 
thought. He was conscious of missing some¬ 
thing. Somehow he seemed incomplete. It was 
as if he had come out upon the streets of a city 
without collar or necktie. As his mind searched 


24 


The Desert Patrol 


for the cause of his sense of incompleteness, he 
found it at last 

“ My head-set/’ he said with a smile. “ I’ve 
grown so used to having those old radio things 
over my ears that I don’t feel dressed without 
them. Wish I had them now. Wish they were 
connected up with the air. ’Twouldn’t seem so 
lonesome and so cold. And I might catch some 
whisper from her, from the good little Whis¬ 
perer.” 

A wave of lonesomeness swept over him. 
Suddenly for the first time he realized that the 
messages of this mysterious Whisperer of the 
air had come to mean a great deal to him. 

Curlie was a boy without a family. If 'he had 
any living relatives, he did not know of them. 
Finding himself lonely at times, he had at last 
taken the whole world for his family. By the 
broad sweep of his radio he had brought them 
together and all very close to him. He meant 
to be, in so far as was possible, of service to 
them all. But this Whisperer, in spite of him, 
had come nearer than any or all the rest of them. 


A Whispered Message 25 

Without his head-set by which he might receive 
any little whispered message that she might send 
out to him, he became intensely lonely. 

It was only natural that, finding himself in 
this frame of mind, he should turn his thoughts 
to the last message he had received from her. 
No, not quite the last, for there had been one 
later, but at least the most important and longest 
message he had ever received from her. 

“ And to think,” he told himself, as his mind 
took up the thread of it, “ when she whispered 
to me, only thirty miles of desert lay between us, 
yet I might not see her whom I have never seen; 
could only listen to her voice.” 

He recalled it all now as if it had been but an 
hour before. He had been waiting for a mes¬ 
sage, any message, for he had had a feeling that 
one would come. He had been standing beside 
his pony with his head-set pressed down over his 
ears. In another moment he would have gone 
spinning out across the desert. Then her mes¬ 
sage had come floating over the air. 

His hand had dropped from the pommel of 


26 The Desert Patrol 

the saddle and he had leaped for the shack door. 

“ Hello, Curlie! Hello! Are you there? ” 

His nerves had tingled at the sound; his pulse 
had quickened at the thought. He had caught 
in that whisper the old note of suppressed 
mystery. 

“ Things doing!” he had murmured as he 
waited breathlessly for the next sentence. 

He had not long to wait. Out of the air it 
came, a low whisper, but distinct as the loudest 
shout might have been: “ Hello, Curlie! How 
would you like to take a little vacation? How 
would you like to go chasing wild horses on the 
Timber Reservation? ” 

“ Chasing wild horses! What nonsense! ” 
Curlie had exclaimed. 

“ You make a fine figure of a cowboy on your 
little blue pony, Curlie. It matches your com¬ 
plexion beautifully! ” There had been almost a 
laugh in the whisper. Curlie did not exactly 
like it. 

“ Yes, you do, Curlie; you look fine, you do, 
and I’m sure they’d take you. Tell you what. 


A Whispered Message 27 

Curlie; there’s a regular cowboy down at Bill 
McKee’s ranch. He just came from Denver. 
He’s a great rider. I saw him win his saddle 
and spurs in a contest where there were ten 
riders of the very best competing against him. 
Clyde Hopkins is his name. He’s tired of city 
life and is out for excitement. And believe me, 
Curlie, he’ll get it up there in the timber running 
wild horses.” Again for a moment the whisper 
had ceased. 

“ Thinking up some more nonsense,” Curlie 
had grinned. 

Curlie had been puzzled at the turn affairs had 
taken. He had thought the Whisperer had 
wanted to tell him something of importance, 
something related to his work. And here she 
was “ joshing” him — or so it seemed to him. 
Surely she could not be in earnest, suggesting 
that he go hunting wild horses on the Timber 
Reservation. 

“ First time I ever heard of wild horses in 
the timber,” he had whispered to himself. 
“ Don’t believe there is a one. Plenty of moose 


28 The Desert Patrol 

and elk, but wild horses — what nonsense ! 99 

Hearing the nicker of his blue pony outside, 
he had been tempted to hang his head-piece on 
the wall, lock the door, leap upon his pony and 
go racing away over the sand. 

“ Be late, as it is,” he had told himself. He 
had planned a trip to Mogordo for provisions. 
It was a long ride, fifteen miles and back. 

“ And now I think — ” 

He had meant to say that he thought the 
Whisperer might go to thunder, for he had more 
important business than listening to her non¬ 
sense, when the whisper had begun again: 

“ You think I’m joking.” 

Curlie had started. It was as if the Whisperer 
had read his thoughts from afar. 

“ I knew you would, Curlie.” The tone of the 
whisper was entirely serious now. “ I wasn’t, 
though. I said that just to get you curious. 
Thought you might ride away on your blue pony 
before I was through, if I didn’t get you guess¬ 
ing. 

“ But, Curlie, the matter’s really serious. There 


A Whispered Message 29 

are wild ponies up in the canyons of the Timber 
Reservation, real little horses, wild as deer. For 
the most part they don’t belong to anyone. The 
one who catches them owns them. Sometimes 
the boys of the prairies go up there and build a 
trap in a ravine. Then they drive the ponies 
down through and catch them. They do it more 
for fun than anything else, as the ponies are 
small and not worth much. 

“ But now, Curlie, a man has arrived on the 
scene who says he proposes to make a serious 
business of catching these ponies and shipping 
them east. I don’t think he really intends to do 
it; he’s using that for a blind. He’s after big¬ 
ger game than those little yellow ponies. What 
that game is, Curlie, is your job to find out. You 
are the Desert Patrol. Your business is to run 
down men who use the air for illegal purposes. 
This man has a fellow with him who is an expert 
radiophone operator. And that man is both 
crooked and ambitious, Curlie; there’s the dan¬ 
ger. His name is Ambrosio Chaves. And the 
name of the other man is Pete Modder. Mod- 


30 


The Desert Patrol 


der has four big, lazy boys who are just like 
himself. They used to live in Texas. They 
stayed until they were wanted for stealing and 
fraud. Then they went to Canada. When the 
Mounties began to look for them, they came 
back over the border into Washington. When 
they were wanted in Washington they moved 
to Idaho. And now they are here. Their 
game is to get a few horses one way or another, 
then to move to town and go into business. 
When they have robbed everyone who trusts 
them, they move on. 

“ But, Curlie,” the whisper became more seri¬ 
ous still, “Ambrosio Chaves is ambitious. He 
wants to become a cattle king. He would stop 
at nothing. He has been suspected of much, but 
nothing thus far has been proved against him. 
If you can get him, get him hard and dead to 
rights, Curlie, you’ll win your western spurs. 
They’ll be golden spurs with points of platinum; 
I promise it, Curlie. 

“ So now, Curlie, you just skip over to the 
ranch I told you about and ask Clyde Hopkins 


A Whispered Message 31 

if he doesn't want to ride over to the gap in the 
Big Black Canyon and join in with those men 
who are going after wild horses. He'll go, 
Curlie, for he likes excitement. They'll let you 
help them, too, Curlie, for they don't like work, 
and it's real work to build a trap that will catch 
horses." 

The whisper had ceased. Curlie had sat down 
unsteadily. 

“ Huh! " he had breathed softly. “ Sounds 
like something, after all, something really big. 
And those golden spurs with the platinum points, 
they sound good to me too. Fine keepsake to 
take back to old Chicago. I'll have them, sure. 
Skin me alive, if I don't have 'em from the fair 
lady's own hand, too." 

Had Curlie known how true these words were 
to prove to be, and how many strange adven¬ 
tures he would go through before they came true, 
he might have remained seated thinking longer 
than he did. As it was, he had hung up his re¬ 
ceiver, locked the door and, leaping upon his 
pony, had ridden away over the moonlit desert. 


32 


The Desert Patrol 


“And that,” he told himself as he came to that 
part of his recollections, “ is why I am here to¬ 
night. That is—” 

His reflections cut short, he suddenly gripped 
his rifle. He had caught a flash of light against 
the dark green of the fir boughs. 

“ Flashlight! ” he breathed softly. “ The raid¬ 
ers are at the bars. Now, Canary, it’s quick ac¬ 
tion and danger, or you are lost! ” 


CHAPTER III 


A WATCH IN THE DARK 

Rising upon one knee, with the butt of his 
heavy rifle pressed solidly against his shoulder, 
he waited. So silent was the forest, so ghostly 
the night, he heard the regular tick-tick of his 
watch and counted the beats of his own heart. 
Little drops of perspiration stood out upon the 
tip of his nose. His knees quivered, but still 
he sat there motionless. 

“ The light will flash again and then — ” he 
whispered to himself. 

A full moment passed, a moment in which he 
fancied many things. Now he imagined he 
caught a movement at his right. Someone was 
creeping upon him. And now there did come a 
faint thud from below. Whether this was the 
stamp of a horse’s hoof or the drop of a raid¬ 
er’s rifle to the ground, he could not tell. 

33 


34 


The Desert Patrol 


Then, suddenly lighting up the dark, there 
came a prolonged flash from the electric torch. 
At the edge of that circle of light appeared a 
dark face, a face entirely strange to Curlie; the 
face of some swarthy Mexican. The next in¬ 
stant, with muscles tense, Curlie thrust out a 
finger for his trigger. At that same instant, as 
if by prearrangement, the light snapped out 
Again all was darkness. 

This darkness was not for long. When again 
the light appeared, it revealed a pair of hands. 
One hand gripped the light; the other held a 
pair of wire-cutters. The bars of the corral 
were wired into position. The man intended cut¬ 
ting those wires. Beyond doubt he had a con¬ 
federate at the back of the corral who was ready, 
once the bars were down, to send the whole band 
of frightened horses thundering down the can¬ 
yon trail in the night. It was a bold attempt, 
but these Mexican raiders were bold. 

All this flew through Curlie's mind like a flash. 
The next instant his finger was on the trigger. 
There came a sharp crack. The light flared out. 


A Watch in the Dark 35 

Then again, save for the sound of stealthy move¬ 
ments in the dark, there was silence. 

Curlie lost not one moment of time. He glided 
swiftly away to his right Yet, quick as he had 
been, someone else was quicker. Suddenly above 
him there loomed the figure of a man, and in his 
hand there gleamed a knife. Curlie had shot the 
torch from the Mexican’s hand and, baffled and 
enraged, the man had charged up the slope and, 
fortune being with him, had come directly upon 
the crouching boy. 

For a second Curlie was frozen with fear; the 
next he was all action. There was not time to 
grasp his rifle and so defend himself. There was 
only an instant in which to do a whirling back 
somersault. As the Mexican lunged forward, 
his arm came sweeping down. His knife slashed 
into the pine needles; that was all. The next mo¬ 
ment his broad sombrero was knocked down over 
his eyes; his arm was struck a violent blow that 
sent his knife whirling through the air. In the 
twinkle of an eye, Curlie had done all this. Then 
he turned to flee, but just a second too late. The 


36 


The Desert Patrol 


long arm of the Mexican swung about and, 
grasping him by his stout coat, sent him crash¬ 
ing to earth with such force as all but drove the 
senses from him. In the next instant he felt a 
crushing weight come hurtling down upon him. 
He lay face down upon the earth; the Mexican 
was on his back. 

For full ten seconds he was unable to regain 
his senses. When at last he caught a gasping 
breath and attempted to move, he found that he 
might as well be buried beneath a mountain as 
to be held down by that burly Mexican. What 
was worse, he could feel the Mexican making 
stealthy movements with his hands. First to 
right, then to left, they groped about. 

“ Searching for his knife,” Curlie thought in 
despair. “ If he finds it I’m a goner. He’ll 
stab me to the heart as though I were a toad.” 

The knife, however, appeared to be hard to 
find. Agonizing moments passed, Curlie frantic¬ 
ally revolving plans of escape in his mind. He 
thought of his own sheath knife. This was out 
of reach of his hand. To struggle for posses- 


A Watch in the Dark 37 

sion of it would be but to call his assailant’s at¬ 
tention to it and so bring his life to a more sud¬ 
den end. His rifle, lying there somewhere in 
the bed of pine needles, was quite as useless. He 
would have shouted but had no breath for it; 
besides, this was as likely to bring foe as friend. 

Now Curlie, though of slender build, was pos¬ 
sessed of great strength of arm. As he lay 
there searching his mind for some means of es¬ 
cape and fearing every moment that the knife 
would be found and his life brought to a sudden 
end, his eyes caught, indistinctly in the space be¬ 
fore him, the outline of some object. At first he 
thought it the hilt of the knife. This sent a 
thrill through his being. If it were the knife 
and he were able to grasp it, the victory would 
be his. This hope faded fast, for, as his eyes 
studied it, he found it to be but the stout root of 
a tree. Washed free of needles and earth by 
some freshet of rain, for a distance of a foot or 
more it bulged above the surface of the ground. 

At once the boy’s mind began to evolve an¬ 
other means of escape. The root was solid and 


38 


The Desert Patrol 


strong; at least, he had reason to hope it was. 
If only he could grasp it with both his hands, 
he felt sure that he might drag himself suddenly 
forward and so overturn his antagonist. But 
could he reach it? Would not the Mexican de¬ 
tect his movement and stop him? He could but 
try. 

Stealthily he moved his right hand forward. 
So intent was the Mexican upon retrieving his 
knife he did not, for the moment, take note of 
the movement. Slowly, ever so slowly, the hand 
moved out over the bed of needles. Now it was 
a foot and a half from the root, now a foot, 
now six inches. And now the slender fingers 
grasped it. 

A sigh of relief escaped the boy's nervous lips. 
The task, however, was but half completed. One 
hand was not enough. His left hand was partly 
doubled under him. The Mexican, in contempt 
of anything the frail boy could do, did not take 
any note of the slight movement that released 
the hand. 

There was a flash of white as Curlie's left 


A Watch in the Dark 


39 


hand shot forward* The next instant, as if rid¬ 
ing a bucking bronco, the Mexican tilted for¬ 
ward to go tumbling back upon his neck. Then, 
hazarding all upon one stroke, the boy let out a 
bloodcurdling scream. 

This scream was answered from a half dozen 
points at once. Soon there came breaking through 
the brush a brown-faced, tough-muscled cowboy, 
Clyde Hopkins, Curlie’s partner. He was fol¬ 
lowed quickly by a slender, dark-eyed Mexican 
type of boy and a little later by three great slouch¬ 
ing boys and a man who could not have been 
mistaken for any other than their father. 

“ What's up?” demanded this man. “Looks 
like you’d queered the game. Gone and drove 
’em all off, hain’t you, and us not shot ’em up 
any? That’s a hot way to do. But what can 
you expect from a greener ? Serves us right fer 
lettin’ y’in on it.” 

Curlie turned white at this speech. He was 
fearfully angry. A moment before he had barely 
escaped death by the hand of a Mexican raid¬ 
er’s knife, yet this man, this Pete Modder, who 


40 


The Desert Patrol 


was, Curlie suspected, no better than a rustler 
himself, blamed him for calling for help. 

For ten full seconds he stood there speechless. 
His mad efforts to control himself at last suc¬ 
cessful, he turned about, picked up something 
from the ground and murmured, “ Here’s his 
knife. Some knife, Fd say.” 

To himself he was saying all the while: “ Pete 
Modder, the time’s not ripe for action yet. You 
think me green, do you? Well, in the end you 
won’t. There’ll be action enough, unless I miss 
my guess, and a lot of action that you won’t par¬ 
ticularly like. Watch me then.” 

All this, passing through his mind and not 
reaching the tip of his tongue, did no harm 
whatever and did help to soothe his wounded 
spirits. 

“ Guess there won’t be anything more doing 
to-night,” said the dark-eyed youth, who was 
the person of doubtful character, Ambrosio 
Chaves. “They know we’re onto them. They 
won’t come back. I’ll lay out here by the corral. 


A Watch in the Dark 


41 


The rest of you might as well get up to camp for 
a wink of sleep. Remember we're going after 
Old Baldie in the morning. And we'll get him 
too." 


CHAPTER IV 


CURLIE DOES SOME WIRE-TAPPING 

A half hour later, in the camp that was hid¬ 
den away beneath the overhanging boughs of 
great, spreading pine trees, Curlie lay warmly 
wrapped in blankets beneath a pup-tent. His 
faithful and trusted partner, Clyde Hopkins, lay 
at his side. Clyde was already asleep. Curlie 
was not His experiences of the night had been 
enough to banish sleep. Twice within an hour 
he had leveled a rifle and shot at a fellow hu¬ 
man being. Once during that same hour he had 
barely escaped death by a Mexican’s keen-bladed 
knife. What boy, under these conditions, would 
have fallen asleep at once? 

“ I seem to have gotten the full force of the 
attack,” he thought to himself. “ None of the 
other boys appear to have had any exciting ex- 
42 


Curlie Does Some Wire-Tapping 43 

periences.” For a moment there lurked in the 
back of his brain a suspicion that all was not 
well, that the wily Ambrosio had somehow come 
to know that he was a member of the Secret 
Service of the Air and that he was in this camp 
to discover the real motives of the men who lived 
in this mountain fastness with the avowed pur¬ 
pose of catching wild ponies. Had he been 
posted in this dangerous position that he might 
be killed by the Mexicans ? Had the whole aflfair 
of the raid been a hoax? He had seen but two 
Mexicans. Had they been hired to pull a fake 
raid and kill him? 

These questions set his hair on end. Why, if 
his suspicions were true, then he was not for a 
single moment safe in this camp. His life wa3 
in constant danger. 

For a short space of time, so overwrought 
were his feelings at these thoughts, he felt that 
he must rise and flee. A calmer counsel held him 
at his post. Beside him was one honest and brave 
fellow whom he could trust. One such was a 
match for three rascals. Besides, there was lit- 


44 


The Desert Patrol 


tie danger that Ambrosio really knew anything 
of his mission in camp. 

Had Curlie not been kept awake by these 
thoughts, he would surely have forced himself 
to stay awake, for he had a piece of secret work 
which he wished very much to do. Now, at 
night, when the gleaming, prying eyes of Am¬ 
brosio were not about, was the opportune time. 
As soon as he could feel sure that the others 
were asleep, he would be up and doing. In the 
meantime there was space for thought. 

Doubtless you have been wondering what was 
Curlie’s real position in this strange camp. It 
will take but a few words to make the matter 
clear. Having received the Whisperer's mes¬ 
sage regarding mysterious affairs that were 
about to come off up on the mountain, he had at 
once gone to the ranch where Clyde Hopkins was 
to be found and had easily persuaded him to go 
along on a trip into the mountain country with 
the purpose of joining, if possible, the band of 
men who were planning to trap wild horses. The 
joining of the band had been absurdly easy. The 


Curlie Does Some Wire-Tapping 45 

trap, to be built of heavy poles, was scarcely be¬ 
gun. Since, as the Whisperer had hinted, the 
men of the band were not fond of hard work, 
Curlie and Clyde had been let in for a lion’s 
share of it. They had laughed this off and had 
professed to be greatly interested in the game of 
wild horse hunting. And, indeed, so they were. 
Neither of them had ever participated in such a 
hunt and a wild, racing game it had proved to be. 

In the last three days they had trapped nine¬ 
teen little yellow and brown ponies, real wild 
horses of the mountains. But, to Curlie’s sur¬ 
prise, while the greater part of their band was 
engaged in this business, two or three others 
were always away at night and were constantly 
returning with from two to three fine, handsome 
colts, which were, it is true, quite as unbranded 
as the yellow ponies, but of a far superior breed. 
They promised in a year or two to make horses 
of some value and, though they came beyond 
doubt off the open range, gave evidence of hav¬ 
ing been watched and cared for. 

When Ambrosio caught Curlie looking at 


46 


The Desert Patrol 


these in surprise, he hastened to assure him that 
they had been bought by members of his party 
to fill out a car of horses. This Curlie did not 
believe. He felt sure that they were being stolen 
from the ranges at night. He could not, how¬ 
ever, prove it. Some of the party might have 
money or credit to buy colts, but if this were 
true he had no evidence of it. It was this cir¬ 
cumstance that had made him certain that his 
presence as a member of the Secret Service was 
greatly needed right here. So he was biding his 
time. Just what moves he would make when 
the time was ripe, he had not as yet decided. 

Just at this time there had come into their 
camp vague rumors of danger. The rumors 
soon took the shape of an anticipated raid upon 
the corral by a band of outlaw Mexicans. That 
meant that Ambrosio and his band must fight 
for the horses they had gotten by what seemed 
questionable methods, or must give them up to 
ancient enemies, rival raiders. This, they had 
informed Curlie, they were not willing to do. 
Then they had asked him if he and his pal Clyde 


Curlie Does Some Wire-Tapping 47 

would stay by them and help fight their battles. 

To this question he had made an evasive 
answer. He wanted time to think it over. It had 
been a trying moment for him. It was one thing 
to run wild horses in the forest with a band of 
men who appeared to be of doubtful character, 
and whose actions he was watching as a mem¬ 
ber of the service; it was quite another to join 
them in a battle with some enemy. Suppose they 
were lying to him? What if, instead of an at¬ 
tack from rival raiders, this were a raid led by 
deputy marshals, who had caught up with Am- 
brosio and his men and were determined to bring 
them to justice. Where would he, Curlie, be 
then? He would show up fine lifting his rifle 
in defense of lawless men when the officers of 
the law were on their track. 

Long had he pondered the problem. Many 
were the questions he had asked of the treacher¬ 
ous Ambrosio. At last he had become convinced 
that the lawless leader was telling the truth. He 
had then promised that, should the raid come, 
he would do his part in defense of the camp. 


48 


The Desert Patrol 


Indeed, this was the only thing he could do. He 
was there to gather evidence against the band 
with whom he was for the moment associated. 
The horses in the corral were the best of evi¬ 
dence. If he were to permit these horses to be 
driven away into the barren hills to the south 
by a band of lawless Mexicans, his evidence 
would vanish and his case be lost. It was up to 
him to fight. And fight he did. It had not been 
much of a raid. He had a suspicion that it was 
but the forerunner of a real raid which might 
come ofif the next night, or two or three nights 
later, a raid in which many Mexicans would take 
part and much blood be shed. During the pres¬ 
ent night, he felt that he had conducted himself 
in a manner such as could but reflect honor upon 
himself, and might help to shield him from any 
possible suspicion which might lurk in the mind 
of the wary Ambrosio as to his real reason for 
being in camp. 

“And now,” he yawned, as he finished think¬ 
ing these things through, “ now for a little work 
that will put me in touch with the outside world.” 


Curlie Does Some Wire-Tapping 49 

Gliding noiselessly out of the tent, he dodged 
from tree to tree until he came to one larger 
and taller than all the rest. Here for a moment 
he stood gazing upward. Gleaming from one of 
the upper branches of this tree to those of one 
to the right, were three parallel wires, the aerials 
of a radiophone. These were Ambrosio’s wires, 
not Curlie’s. In Ambroses tent there was a 
fairly powerful portable sending and receiving 
set. By the aid of this equipment he was able 
to keep in touch with many points, not alone in 
the United States but also in Mexico. In the 
back room of many a pool hall and drinking 
place of doubtful repute there were radio sets 
for sending and receiving messages which might 
well have been coveted by institutions of greater 
reputation. Many times these were operated in 
secret. Any message that might come from Am- 
brosio there on the mountain would be quickly 
and surely dispatched from these secret stations. 

Curlie knew all this, though he knew little 
enough about the location of these stations. 
“ Here’s where I go in for a little wire-tapping 


50 


The Desert Patrol 


on my own/’ he whispered to himself, as after 
glancing about and listening for a moment to 
make doubly sure he was not observed, he felt 
of a coil of wire in his pocket, then, catching the 
lower limb of a giant fir tree, swung up to lose 
himself from view in the dark depth of needle¬ 
laden boughs. 

Ambrosio’s aerials were not attached to the 
tree which he was climbing, but to the next one 
at the right. After climbing to the level of 
these aerials, Curlie began creeping out upon a 
broad-spreading limb that touched the tips of 
the one across from it. This was dangerous 
business. Suspended in midair some seventy 
feet from the ground, he was in immediate 
danger of being crashed to earth. Once the 
bough cracked ominously. For an instant his 
heart was in his mouth. Then, reassured, he 
again ventured out a foot or two. Ambrosio’s 
aerial was now all but within his grasp. Reach¬ 
ing unsteadily to the branch above him, he bal¬ 
anced himself as with the other hand he tried 
for a grasp at the aerial. The first and second 


Curlie Does Some Wire-Tapping 51 

attempts were futile and left him breathless. The 
third was successful. He was able to draw the 
wires toward him a distance of a foot or two. 
Having done this, he twined his feet about the 
branch he was on and, loosing his hold upon the 
upper branch, he began a breathless juggling 
that might enable him to attach a wire to the 
aerials. For full five minutes he struggled. 
During all this time there was a question whether 
he would succeed in keeping his balance or would 
go plunging to earth. 

At last with a deep sigh of relief and whis¬ 
pered, “Ah! There! ” he loosened his grip upon 
the aerials, allowed them to settle back to normal 
position, then unrolling a wire after him, pro¬ 
ceeded to creep back to a place of safety in a 
crotch of the tree. The wire he uncoiled was 
dark brown in color and blended perfectly with 
the bark of the tree. At this height it could not 
be detected from the ground. 

“ But if Ambrosio takes his aerials down 
before I disconnect my tapping wire/’ he 
breathed, “ then, man, oh, man! ” 


52 


The Desert Patrol 


“ Ho, well/’ he sighed, “ in this little game you 
have to take chances. And, after all, you don’t 
take them so much for yourself as you do for 
others, for the innocent ones who suffer if the 
selfish evaders of the law are not brought to 
bay and punished. There is some satisfaction 
in that.” 

As he crept down the tree he unwound the 
wire, taking great care to conceal it, in so far as 
it was possible, behind clinging moss and loose 
strips of bark. Once upon the ground, he thrust 
the wire beneath the bed of needles and in this 
manner brought it to his tent. Hidden beneath 
the dry depths of needles beneath his bed was 
a miniature, peanut bulb listening-in set of con¬ 
siderable power. 

“ Now,” he whispered, with a sigh of satis¬ 
faction, as he hooked the wire to his instruments, 
“ I am in a position to listen in on any little mes¬ 
sage which may come to our crafty friend Am- 
brosio, and I can catch any message which may 
be whispered to me, providing I am listening at 
the right time. There’s some comfort in being 


Curlie Does Some Wire-Tapping 53 

connected up with the outside world once more. 
If only the gang doesn't get onto it I hope to get 
considerable excitement out of it, and if they do, 
why then I'll get a lot of excitement out of it 
of an entirely different sort.” 

Having delivered this bit of philosophy to the 
night air, he rolled himself in his blankets and 
settled back for three winks before dawn. 

“ It's a fairly exciting life,” he told himself 
dreamily, “ exciting and quite entertaining. I'd 
like —” 

Just here he drifted off to the land of dreams 
and was unconscious of the old world's doings 
until Clyde prodded him in the ribs and informed 
him that it was broad day and that things were 
doing; that this was to be the most exciting 
chase of all, for on this day Old Baldie was to 
be brought down the canyon and delivered to the 
corral. 

“ Maybe so,” Curlie muttered sleepily, “ but I 
gotta be showed. Old Baldie is foxy, foxy as a 
horse could be made.” 


CHAPTER V 


A RACE FOR A RARE PRIZE 

With the wild tang of the mountain forest air 
in his nostrils, Curlie mounted his sturdy blue 
pony and followed the others up the trail. For a 
few hours at least he could forget his problems 
and dangers. Each day, as they raced away 
after wild ponies, he had been able to forget all 
but the chase. And to-day it was to be for Old 
Baldie. 

Old Baldie, as they had come to call him, and 
as he had been known for some two years by men 
who rode up the blazed trail of the mountain, was 
more than a little yellow mustang. He was a 
real horse, a sorrel stallion with a white spot 
between his eyes, and he had been watched and 
admired from afar by many a hunter, pros¬ 
pector or rambler of lonely places. Where he 
had come from no one seemed to know. He was 

54 


55 


A Race for a Rare Prize 

not branded. A cowboy had once stolen close 
upon him and discovered that. He was the 
property of the man who captured him. Thus 
far he had remained his own master. Time and 
again he had been all but within a corral. Indeed 
Ambrosio himself claimed to have had him 
within the very wings of a trap. Then, to Am¬ 
broses astonishment, he had silently vanished. 

“A Diabla! ” was the Mexican’s description of 
him. But to the passionate young Ambrosio Old 
Baldie was a creature who defied his strategy 
and so but led him on to more daring attempts. 
To mount himself upon the back of Baldie, to 
go riding across the desert, envied and admired 
by all of his kind, that was one of Ambrosio’s 
fondest dreams. 

The trap he had supervised this time had been 
built with Old Baldie in mind. Baldie and his 
band of ponies, some eight or ten in number, fed 
on the edges of a narrow valley through which 
a stream of crystal water gleamed like a silver 
ribbon. The stream was never dry, so Baldie’s 
band was never thirsty. The grass, green and 


56 


The Desert Patrol 


luscious in summer, waved invitingly all winter 
long and gave them ample forage. At the bot¬ 
tom of this valley was a narrow ravine. 
Through this ravine, when chased too closely, 
Baldie was wont to lead his little band. Once 
they had passed over the steep and narrow trail 
through this ravine they might lose themselves 
in the forests that lined the sloping hills beyond. 
Once there, not a human being nor any wild 
creature could ever find them. 

Ambrosio, after bringing together a great 
heap of willow and aspen poles and short ever¬ 
green saplings, had built a trap in this ravine. 
Beginning with a pole fence forming wings on 
either side that ran quite up to the rugged walls 
of granite, he gradually narrowed the space 
between these wings until there was little more 
than room for the well-trodden path. Down this 
neck the ponies were rushed. 

With an idea that they might, as of old, pass 
through the gorge and out into wider spaces 
beyond, they would not falter. But this narrow 
neck of poles came to a sudden halt in a high- 


57 


A Race for a Rare Prize 

walled corral. This corral was some thirty feet 
across. The walls were twelve feet high, built 
of strong poles lashed by heavy wire from tree 
to tree. Once a horse was within these walls and 
the gap by which he had entered had been closed 
with stout bars, it did not seem within the bounds 
of reason that he might escape. That was the 
way Ambrosio had thought about it as he had 
rubbed his hands in high glee at the completing 
of the trap. 

Ambrosio, however, though he knew a great 
deal about horses, knew very little about Baldie. 
One may not be able to escape from a trap once 
he is in it, but he may succeed in staying out of 
the trap. That, thus far, was exactly what 
Baldie had succeeded in doing. There were 
other small bands of wild horses feeding on the 
edges of this same long, narrow valley. Some 
of these had fallen into Ambroses trap. Not 
Baldie. 

Three times he had been seen sunning his 
flowing mane on some lofty promontory, but 
never had he been approached. These glimpses 


58 The Desert Patrol 

had but maddened the master raider. He had 
spurred on his men, and to-day they had 
resolved that if not one single other horse entered 
the wings of their corral, Baldie should. 

It was Clyde Hopkins who first sighted Baldie. 
It was fortunate for the wishes of Ambrosio that 
it was so. Born and bred a cowboy, cool, strong, 
sinewy and brown, a trained and fearless rider, 
Clyde would drive Baldie into the trap if anyone 
could. Clyde had one quality which none of the 
band save Curlie possessed — a clean and honest 
soul. Prize this ever so lightly as many may, 
when it comes to a great undertaking there is no 
other quality that so fits a boy or man to perse¬ 
vere and endure. Not goody-goody, but strong, 
honest and true, that was Clyde Hopkins. 

Ambrosio and Clyde had ridden off up the 
valley together. The others had been stationed 
in the low timber just above the trap. When 
they heard the shout of the drivers they were to 
mount and race along on either side of the flee¬ 
ing ponies to guide them into the trap. Their 
task, for the present, was but to wait. To Clyde 


59 


A Race for a Rare Prize 

and Ambrosio was given the business of hunting 
out the quarry and of sending them racing 
toward the trap. 

They had divided when but halfway up the 
valley. From this point they mounted the slop¬ 
ing sides of hills that lined the valley and, their 
eyes and ears ever alert for signs of wild horses, 
rode on in concealment. 

When Clyde saw this monarch of the little 
valley realm, Baldie, it was to start and stare. 
He had been slowly moving forward over a soft 
mantle of pine needles for fifteen minutes. Not 
a sound had escaped from him or from the foot¬ 
steps of his pony. Then, of a sudden, somewhere 
below him he caught a gleam of gold. What 
it was he for the instant did not know. What 
he thought it was caused him to gasp. 

Silently drawing his pony’s rein over his head, 
he dropped upon the soft mantled earth and, 
leaving his mount standing motionless, crept for¬ 
ward on hands and knees. Then it was that, 
creeping around a low-grown silver fir, he first 
caught sight of Baldie. 


60 


The Desert Patrol 


The sight caused him to sit staring motionless 
for the space of one full minute. Partly con¬ 
cealed in the brush, with his head erect and eyes 
staring away at the opposite hillside where Am- 
brosio must be riding in search of him, the stal¬ 
lion made a picture that the boy would not soon 
forget. Such a glimmer of gold as was his 
glossy coat! Such roundness of shoulders! Such 
curve of neck! Such dark, flashing eyes! Such 
graceful, tapering limbs! 

During that whole minute, the boy sat staring 
and reasoning within himself. Should he back 
away and, pretending that he had never seen the 
splendid fellow, ride on in silence, or should he 
return to his horse and attempt to head him 
toward the trap? 

His love for wild free things held out valiantly, 
but in time his love of conquest, the hope that 
somehow he might secure this noble beast for his 
own, caused him to back away to his pony and 
consider what to do. 

A moment later, he let out such a wild Indian 
whoop as sent echoes racing from hill to hill and 


A Race for a Rare Prize 61 

startled the wild horse into plunging down the 
slope. 

It was this sudden, wild whoop that was 
Baldie’s undoing. Had he in the least suspected 
that there was an enemy behind him, he would 
have stepped gracefully about to right or left 
and would have quickly lost himself in the for¬ 
ests above. Totally surprised, he dashed down¬ 
ward to the valley below. Heading for the oppo¬ 
site slope, he was met by Ambrosio’s wildly 
plunging pony. It was soon that he found him¬ 
self surrounded by a racing, shouting band 
of men. 

Even so, he outdistanced them all with a speed 
that was amazing. Then, as the valley nar¬ 
rowed, seeming to sense his danger, he turned 
and tried the bank at the right. Once, twice, 
three times he plunged upward, each time to fall 
back. The bank here was too steep, the sides too 
thickly strewn with loose dirt and shale. He 
could not make it. Then, with one defiant snort, 
he headed straight down between the wings into 
the trap. 


62 


The Desert Patrol 


From the lips of Ambrosio there came such a 
shout of triumph as caused Clyde to wish that 
he had crept away and left the monarch free in 
his realm. There was something in this dark¬ 
eyed youth's nature that Clyde did not like. Just 
what that was, he could not for the moment tell. 
He was soon enough to know. 

For the moment, however, every thought was 
given by the horsemen to one affair, that of striv¬ 
ing to be the first after Baldie into the narrow 
neck of the trap. 

Spur and lash their ponies as they might, not 
one of them could outdistance Curlie Carson and 
his Canary. Having been but a watcher by the 
trail until now, he swung about and dashed for¬ 
ward at a rate that rivaled that of the monarch 
himself. After him came Clyde, closely followed 
by the wild Ambrosio. So, only three lengths 
apart, they came plunging after the prize. 

Hardly had the wild horse reached the end of 
the corral when these three riders crowded the 
gap that lay between him and freedom. Expect¬ 
ing him to turn and charge before they could 


A Race for a Rare Prize 63 

dismount and put up the bars, they held their 
places in saddle and waited in breathless 
suspense. 

With a wild snort the wonder horse came up 
short, to rear back upon his haunches. He was 
then not three feet from the lower end of the 
corral. Then with a wild sweep of mane and 
tail he whirled three times about the enclosure. 
This done, he paused and stood with head bowed 
like a man in deep thought. 

Just then Clyde, thinking of the bars, was 
about to dismount, when a strange movement on 
the part of the wild horse caused him to halt 
with one foot in the stirrup. Baldie had walked 
up to the upper side of the enclosure, and, with 
movement as dainty as any woman, had put out 
a foot to test the poles. This, he repeated three 
times. Each time his foot went higher on the 
poles. Then, with an unrivaled ease and grace, 
he swung upon his hind feet and placed his fore¬ 
feet against the poles. Clyde gasped as he saw 
how far up the poles these feet reached. 

If he had gasped at this motion, the next move 


64 


The Desert Patrol 


set his senses reeling, for, with all the grace of a 
trick horse of the circus, the bold Baldie sprang 
straight upward. Catching at the poles with 
both pairs of feet, slipping, but ever climbing, he 
came at last to the top rail. There for one awe¬ 
inspiring moment he hung suspended in air. 
Then his head and forelegs plunged over, his 
body swayed backward and forward, at last to 
plunge to earth on the other side. For a second, 
as if stunned, he lay there motionless. Then 
with a mighty leap he was upon his feet and 
away like a shot. 

“ Oh! Ah! ” sighed Curlie, as if he were wit¬ 
nessing a wonderful stunt in a circus. 

“ Well, Fllbe jig-” 

This exclamation of Clyde’s was cut short by 
the action of Ambrosio. A short carbine was 
fastened to his saddle. Quickly unleashing this 
he whirled it about and pointed it square at the 
fleeing horse. In the next second he would have 
sent a soft-nosed bullet into the splendid beast’s 
quivering flesh. 

Just as his finger touched the trigger, his rifle 



65 


A Race for a Rare Prize 

shot upward and the bullet cut the tree tops. 
The next instant found him upon the ground 
glaring up at Clyde, who had knocked him from 
his horse. 

Such a look of dark rage as was on Ambroses 
face, Curlie Carson had not seen on any face 
before. 

“ What do you mean ? ” he demanded, glaring 
up at Clyde. 

“ I mean,” said Clyde, through straight, set 
lips, “ that you can't do a thing like that while 
I'm about. A man who shoots a horse is a mur¬ 
derer, a beast. You may be a beast but I'd advise 
you to keep it to yourself.” 

“ If I can't have him, neither can anyone else. 
I'll shoot him on sight.” 

“ Do it when I'm not around,” said Clyde 
firmly. 

“ I'll kill anyone or anything that crosses my 
will,” exclaimed Ambrosio, flaring up into 
another violent rage. 

Realizing that speech was useless with such a 
rage-crazed person, Clyde dropped the reins of 


66 


The Desert Patrol 


his pony over his arm and followed Curlie Car- 
son out of the enclosure. 

For full five minutes they walked along in 
silence. 

“ Well/’ laughed Clyde at last, “ sort of made 
him show himself up, didn’t I? ” 

“ I’ll say. Look out for him. He — he’s 
dangerous,” stammered Curlie. 

“ Think so?” drawled Clyde. “ Well, maybe 
so — maybe so. I’m not afraid of him. Let him 
do his worst.” 

“Say!” exclaimed Curlie, changing the sub¬ 
ject, “ the day is still young. What say we go 
to the top? ” 

“ Top of the mountain? ” 

“ Sure.” 

“ Man, that’s a hard climb! ” 

“ I know it, but I’ve never climbed a mountain 
and besides there’s something I’d like to look 
into. My intuition tells me I might get sight of 
something up there above the timber line that 
will help me to answer some questions.” 

" Got anything to do with those unbranded 


A Race for a Rare Prize 67 

colts that we didn’t catch in our trap but are in 
Ambrosio’s corral?” asked Clyde. 

“ You’re a good mind-reader,” grinned Curlie. 
“ It might have.” 

“All right, then I’m with you,” exclaimed 
Clyde. “If there’s anything a cowboy hates it’s 
walking, and I’m one of ’em, but this is worth 
the hike, so lead on.” 

In the meantime Old Baldie had lost himself 
in the rugged slopes that lay below the camp and 
Ambrosio had returned to his tent to sulk. Had 
he known what things the outlaw horse was yet 
to do, he might have loaded his heaviest rifle and 
gone gunning for him at that very moment. 
And had Clyde known what Baldie was to do 
for him, he would have been ten times more will¬ 
ing to defend him. 


CHAPTER VI 


AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY 

Their ponies took them but a short two miles 
toward the peak. After that they tethered them 
in a spot where rich grass was abundant, and 
started directly up a narrow, blazed trial that 
was more a path than a trail. This path led in 
a steep and tortuous way through virgin timber 
to the timber line, beyond which no trees could 
grow. 

Never in all his life had Curlie found himself 
in a more delightful spot than was this mountain 
forest. The cool, damp smell all about him, the 
distant rush of a stream over a rocky bed, 
the towering pines and firs, the steep upward 
slope that challenged their powers and beckoned 
them on, all these went far toward making 
the hour of that climb the most perfect he 
had known. 


68 


An Important Discovery 69 

If the timber had been enchanting, the top 
of the mountain was enchantment itself with 
a thrill; for here, above the timber, where grass 
and flowers grew in luxuriant abundance, 
where mountain quail went whirring away 
against the sun, where a red fox, unafraid, 
came out to chatter at them, they could gaze 
away to their right and see in the hazy dis¬ 
tances, not alone forests and farms, but deserts, 
cities and the snow-white peaks of many an¬ 
other mountain. 

Above the timber line the mountain spread 
out into a plateau which was miles in extent. 
This plateau was all thickly covered with 
grass. 

“ What a pasture! ” exclaimed Curlie. 

“ Something's been feeding here/’ said Clyde, 
stooping over and examining the grass. 

“What do you think it was?” 

“ Might be mountain sheep, moose, elk, or 
it might be — ” 

Again he bent low to examine some tracks 
in a soft swampy spot. “ Was horses,” he said 


70 


The Desert Patrol 


slowly. “ Now what do you make of that? 
What horses could they be?” 

Since for the moment there was no logical 
solution of the question, Curlie proposed that 
they make their way on toward the summit. 

“ Looks as if there were some fair sized 
stones at the top,” he said. 

“ Stones! Man, them’s boulders,” exclaimed 
Clyde, “big as houses! You couldn’t any more 
climb up one of them than you could a stone 
wall. It’s farther up there than you think. 
That’s why they look small. But come on; 
since we must do it, let’s get the agony over 
with as soon as possible.” 

Clyde led the way up the grassy slope. 

An hour later they were struggling pant- 
ingly forward over jagged grapite boulders 
of prodigious size, making their last final strug¬ 
gle to reach the very topmost point. 

“View must be grand from there,” panted 
Curlie. 

“ Ought to be,” Clyde panted back; “ enough 
trouble to get up there. My back’s about 


An Important Discovery 71 

broke, and as for my legs, they won’t have a 
joint left to-morrow. But come on, let’s go.” 

With a final effort, he at last stepped out 
upon a boulder that, surrounded by three others 
slightly higher, formed a sort of giant speaker’s 
platform from which it seemed the whole world 
might be surveyed. 

Curlie’s gaze circled and circled as it took in 
forests in the distance and plains far beyond. 
A blue lake glimmered at their feet. Its level 
surface was some two thousand feet below. 
The desert sand gleamed away to the south. 
Curlie, who had never witnessed anything half 
so grand, was entranced by it all. 

Not so Clyde. His gaze, roving for a 
moment, had at length come to rest upon a 
spot on the green mountain-top plateau. 

“What are they, I’d like to know,” he mur¬ 
mured absent-mindedly to himself. 

“What’s what?” asked Curlie. 

“ Something feeding away down there to the 
left.” 

Curlie’s eyes were directed to a dark brown 


72 


The Desert Patrol 


spot in the midst of the sea of green. “ I 
wouldn't know," he said thoughtfully. “This 
is not my world. It's yours, though. You 
should be able to tell." 

“ That's right, I should," laughed Clyde. 
“And I think I know. It's horses. Nothing 
else feeds just like a horse. I've been watching 
them. It's horses all right. But how'd they 
come here? " 

“ Why, I know! " exclaimed Curlie suddenly. 
“ I had about forgotten it. Couple of weeks 
ago I picked up a radio message that was be¬ 
ing sort of broadcasted. Some dry-farmer was 
inviting his friends and neighbors, irrigation 
farmers and dry-farmers, to enter into a con¬ 
tract with him to pasture their extra horses 
and colts on the plateau of this very mountain. 
He said they would get them together in a 
drove and hire some men to drive them up 
here and keep a watch over them. It seems 
that the land could be leased from the govern¬ 
ment cheap." 

“ Well, the deal evidently went through,” 


An Important Discovery 73 

said Clyde slowly. “ A lot of farmers must 
have gone into it; five hundred head down 
there. Feed enough for 'em, too.” He was 
speaking in a thoughtful tone now. “ Fine 
scheme, only — ” 

“ By Jinks!” he exclaimed suddenly, “that 
explains something — a whole lot of things.” 
In his excitement he began to hop about on his 
perilous roost in a manner that caused Curlie 
to fear for his safety. 

“What does it explain?” asked Curlie when 
he had quieted down. 

“ It tells me plain as day that our friend 
Ambrosio and his bunch are a pretty gang of 
horse thieves.” 

“ Did you just begin to suspect that?” asked 
Curlie, smiling. 

“ Sure. Did you know it all the time ? ” 
Clyde looked at him so fiercely that it seemed 
he might pitch Curlie into the lake two thou¬ 
sand feet below if the answer was yes. 

“ No,” said Curlie slowly. “ I haven't known 
it all the time and don't know it now. Neither 


74 The Desert Patrol 

do you. I have suspected it, same as you do 
now. I thought I’d wait until you said you 
suspected it before I told you the whole of my 
game.” 

“ I don’t just suspect it now. I know it,” 
declared Clyde stoutly. “ Know it so blamed 
well that I am willing to ride my pony down to 
Mogordo to-night and bring up a posse of 
deputies to arrest the whole bunch of ’em. 
And if you don’t come along, you’ll get pinched 
along with ’em.” 

Curlie threw back his shoulders and laughed. 
“ Clyde,” he smiled, “ I’m a member of the 
Secret Service of the Air. Every move I make 
is known by men high up in authority. They 
know what I am doing and trust me. If I’m 
arrested to-day I am a free boy to-morrow. So 
who cares about that?” 

“ What’s the Secret Service of the Air?” 
asked Clyde. 

“ Sit down there and I’ll tell you.” 

Clyde sat down on the rocky rim of the top 
of the world and there, for the first time, 


An Important Discovery 75 

learned many of the secrets of that magnificent 
organization that was working night and day 
to keep the air free for the use of honest and 
iust men. 

“ That’s a fine organization,” he exclaimed 
when Curlie had finished. “ Like to belong to 
it myself.” 

“ You’re in its service now — my right-hand 
man,” said Curlie heartily, slapping him on the 
shoulder. “ And since you are will you kindly 
tell me how you know our friend Ambrosio and 
his men are horse rustlers?” 

“ That’s easy,” laughed Clyde. “ Every 
morning there are two or three fine unbranded 
colts in the corral that weren’t there the night 
before. Ain’t that right?” 

“ Sure is.” 

“ And them colts ain’t wild pony colts, nor 
they ain’t mountain colts at all — too soft and 
smooth-skinned for that. They’ve been winter- 
fed and mebby sheltered. Where’d they come 
from? Think Ambrosio came up here and 
bought ’em the way he says he does? Not a 


76 


The Desert Patrol 


bit of it. Ambrosio hain’t got no money an’ 
if he had he’d never spend it for colts that he 
thought he could steal. 

“Why!” he exclaimed, rising and making 
his boot heels ring on the granite floor, “ it’s 
as simple as two and two. Every night they 
wander up this way and pick off two or three 
stray colts. Only one watchman, and him half 
asleep, can’t keep an eye on the whole five 
hundred in the dark. You couldn’t mebby get 
away with a big bunch, but two or three, that’s 
easy. 

“ If it was a regular drover’s bunch they’d 
all be branded, but these farmers, with only 
three or four apiece, what do they know about 
brands ? 

“ Worst of it is,” he stormed, “ they’re rob¬ 
bing poor people who sometimes hain’t got 
enough of anything to see ’em through the 
winter. Dry farmin’ ain’t no cinch and irri¬ 
gation’s just as bad until you get a good start. 
Send for the deputies and have ’em pinched 
right now and at once, them’s my sentiments.” 


An Important Discovery 77 

“ Well,” said Curlie thoughtfully, “ that’s 
one way to do it, of course. But at present we 
haven’t any proof, not real proof, that they 
haven’t bought them. Besides, if they have 
been stealing them, there’ll be a gun battle and 
some good honest deputies will more than likely 
be killed. I wouldn’t like that. 

“ I — ” he hesitated — “ I’ve sort of had a 
plan in my head. Wonder how it will strike 
you?” 

“ Shoot,” said Clyde, settling himself back on 
the rock. “ I’m listening.” 

For fifteen minutes Curlie spoke slowly* 
thoughtfully, of a plan he had worked out. 
From time to time Clyde interrupted to offer 
suggested changes. When he had finished, his 
companion reached over and patted him on the 
head. 

“ Some bean you’ve got, Curlie, old boy,” he 
complimented. “ Believe it will work and it’ll 
be a heap of fun. Won’t they open their eyes? 
But, say, it is time we were gettin’ down out 
of here. See them clouds off to the west? 


78 


The Desert Patrol 


That means a storm, and a storm on a mountain 
peak has got an Arctic blizzard beat four 
ways.” 

Leaping from the rocky crow’s-nest perch to 
a boulder below, he made his way swiftly down¬ 
ward. He was followed by Curlie, who kept 
an interested eye turned toward the storm. 
Little he guessed then what a mountain storm of 
the near future would mean to him. Had he 
known, he might have watched this one even 
more closely. 


CHAPTER VII 


“ THE RAIDERS! THE RAIDERS! ” 

That night, as he lay beneath his blankets, 
with his radiophone headpiece securely clamped 
about his ears, Curlie Carson received two mes¬ 
sages which, to say the least, made his position 
in the camp of Ambrosio more hazardous and 
lessened the chances of the plan which he and 
Clyde had worked out on the mountain. 

If Ambrosio was still disappointed because 
of his failure to capture the king of wild horses, 
he did not show it as they all sat down to a 
hearty meal of fresh meat that to Curlie tasted 
suspiciously like elk steak. “ And that in spite 
of the fact that the season on elk is closed,” 
he told himself. “ I’ll say my little pals are 
some real sports. Law doesn’t mean anything 
to them. But we’ll see if we can’t give them 
a little respect for it in the near future.” 

Ambrosio seemed to have quite forgotten the 
79 


80 


The Desert Patrol 


fact that Clyde had prevented him from shoot¬ 
ing the horse he had failed to capture, for he 
appeared desirous of becoming quite chummy 
with the cowboy. He discussed with him the 
probability of a storm, the advisability of con¬ 
structing another corral farther up the ravine 
and ended by inviting him to join in a game of 
cards. 

Clyde excused himself at this point and 
walked up to the horse-trap. This trap was 
a full mile from the corral where the captured 
horses were kept The trap was on a ravine 
through which a trail ran and up which from 
time to time prospectors, fishermen and sight¬ 
seers might be expected to travel. The corral 
in which the horses were kept was up a dark 
little ravine which ended in a steep and rocky 
wall. No one ever came that way. In fact, 
it would be hard to imagine a darker and more 
forbidding spot. Surrounded by black pine 
trees, frowned down upon by overhanging cliffs, 
this corral seemed a fitting place for some sort 
of battle. 


* The Raiders! The Raiders!” 


81 


“ Shouldn't wonder but that in ages long 
gone some Indian tribe made its last stand 
in that dark hole,” Clyde told himself as he 
climbed a rugged slope on his way to the 
horse-trap. 

There was one matter which he wished to 
clear up. That king of wild horses had per¬ 
formed a feat that up until that moment he 
had believed impossible; he had climbed a 
twelve-foot fence of poles. 

“ Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen 
it. There's one point I want to know about, 
though. That's just what I'm going to look 
into right now.” 

In a short time he was standing within the 
trap. 

“ I thought so,” he murmured as he stepped 
up close to the upper side of the pen. “ Slants 
away from the center. Trees the poles are 
fastened to lean up hill. Most trees do. That 
gave the old boy a little advantage. Something 
like climbing a reclining ladder. Horses do 
that in the circus. But I bet they never tackled 


82 


The Desert Patrol 


as steep a one as this. Never had as good a 
reason, though. Wouldn’t want to be Am¬ 
broses horse myself. He’s got no heart; not 
for horses, at least. Think of his wanting to 
kill that beautiful creature to-day, just because 
he was running away. And the daring old fel¬ 
low was running to reclaim the freedom that, 
as far as we are concerned, belongs to him.” 

Turning about, he climbed out of the trap, 
struck down the hill and, a few moments later, 
joined Curlie in his tent. Curlie was beneath 
his blankets, with head half buried, pretending 
to sleep but in reality listening in. When Clyde 
thrust aside the flaps of the tent, Curlie made 
a quick move beneath the blankets. Then, 
seeing it was Clyde, he dropped back into his 
place and held up a warning finger for silence. 

“ Getting something,” he whispered. “ Mighty 
queer. Been repeated three times. Meant for 
our friend Ambrosio, but I can’t make it out.” 

“ Here, write it down,” whispered Clyde, pro¬ 
ducing pencil and notebook. “ I’m more used 
to this Mexican and Indian talk and their queer 


“ The Raiders! The Raiders!” 83 

names than you are. Maybe I can make it look 
like sense.” 

Curlie scribbled for a moment, then handed 
the notebook to his companion. 

Switching on a flashlight, Clyde studied the 
writing for some moments in silence. This is 
what he read: 

“ Sepriano Gonzales, Enselmo Garcia, Baz 
Peone and Yiacero. Devil’s Door Step, to¬ 
morrow at ten bells.” 

“ Well,” he whispered at last, “ far’s I can 
make out, Ambrosio’s going to have reinforce¬ 
ments. Coming to-morrow night. That looks 
as if we were about to hit for the dry and dusty 
desert soon, and then away to the rugged fast¬ 
nesses where an ordinary man hasn’t any busi¬ 
ness to go. Two Indians and two Mexicans 
will meet Ambrosio at the Devil’s Door Step 
to arrange terms by which these four new 
rascals are to pilot our own gang of precious 
rogues across the border with their booty. 
That’s coming off to-morrow night at ten p. m. 
Those fellows, never having been to sea, don’t 


84 


The Desert Patrol 


know a thing about bells, but they put it in for 
an artistic touch all the same.” 

“ Devil’s Door Step,” whispered Curlie 
thoughtfully. 

“ That’s a rocky shelf about a mile over here 
to the right, just over the first ridge and up a 
bit.” 

“What sort of place is it?” asked Curlie, 
sitting up and forgetting about the danger of 
being discovered with the headpiece over his 
ears. 

“ Oh, pretty rocky.” 

“ Any caves ? ” 

“Not exactly caves, but there is a deep cut 
in the rocks above it. I’ve heard there were 
sometimes bear in there.” 

“ You see,” Curlie said grinning, “ It doesn’t 
suit me to — 

“ Just a minute,” he broke off. “ Getting 
something.” Then, as if remembering his posi¬ 
tion, he sank down deep beneath the blankets. 
Clyde turned about and sat by the door of the 
tent that he might offer Curlie any needed pro- 


“ The Raiders! The Raiders!" 85 

tection from those who might wish to spy upon 
him. 

The message Curlie was getting was from 
the Whisperer. She had never before seemed 
so close. It was as if she were whispering in 
his very ear. Never before had he wished so 
heartily for his radio-compass that he might 
chart her location. 

“ Some day IT1 find you,” he whispered, as 
he heard her twice repeated “ Hello, hello, 
Curlie, are you there? 

“ Listen, Curlie,” the whisper was low and 
tense, “you are in great peril. If it wasn’t 
for the fact that you are serving many people 
who need your service very much, I would ask 
you to come away from the mountain. But 
you will be very, very careful, won’t you, 
Curlie ? They are treacherous, bad men, Curlie. 
To-morrow night others will come. They are 
even more daring than the rest. I wanted to 
tell you that. I do hope you have found a way 
out. 

“ Listen, Curlie, would you like to know very 


86 


The Desert Patrol 


much who I am and where I live? Here’s a 
promise, then: If you get out of this safe, 
you’ll see me and speak to me. I promise it. 
Good-bye, Curlie. And, oh, please do be 
careful! ” 

Little drops of cold perspiration stood out 
on Curlie’s nose as he drew the receiver from 
his head and sat up. Never in all his experi¬ 
ences with the Whisperer had he caught in 
her whisper such a note of seriousness, a seri¬ 
ousness that was akin to fear, as he had in 
this whisper of this night. 

“ I guess we have got to play our cards 
about right,” he told himself. “ But there’s a 
promised prize; and it is some prize! I am to 
see the Whisperer, to speak to her face to 
face, to — ” 

His thought was suddenly broken off by three 
shots in rapid succession. 

“ That’s the signal! ” exclaimed Clyde. “ It’s 
the raiders! The Mexican raiders! They’re 
back already. Who’d have thought they’d come 
two nights in succession ? ” 


“The Raiders! The Raiders!” 


87 


In a twinkle of an eye, armed to the teeth, 
they were gliding cautiously down the bank 
that led to the corral in which were enclosed 
not alone the captured wild ponies and the colts 
which had appeared so mysteriously, but their 
own ponies as well. 

“ Have to defend Canary from the raiders,” 
Curlie told himself, “ if nothing more. But it’s 
our game to keep the stolen horses in the corral 
until the show-down. If these rank outsiders, 
these Mexican raiders who are doing their best 
to carry off the whole bunch of them, succeed in 
driving them into the desert, then into the rock- 
piles beyond, where is our evidence gone? Gone 
to the wind, and Canary with it.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


CLYDE WOUNDED 

This second threatening of a night raid on 
their corral puzzled Curlie. When the first one 
had been pulled off he had thought it something 
of an accident; a little band of raiders, per¬ 
haps only three or four in number, had chanced 
upon their corral and, thinking Ambrosio and 
his band to be some honest trader and trapper 
of wild horses, had decided that here was easy 
picking. When they had put up a stiff defense, 
he had supposed that these Mexicans would 
move on up the valley or over the mountain 
where the pastures were greener and the watch¬ 
men not so well armed nor so vigilant. 

And yet here they were again. Three shots 
in quick succession had been agreed upon as a 
signal by their guard. There had been a 
scream. What this last might mean, he could 
88 


89 


Clyde Wounded 

not tell, but that the battle was on he did not 
doubt, for up from the run there came again 
the quick rat-tat-tat of an automatic. 

One question entered his mind: Had the two 
Mexicans and the Indians, who were to be met 
by Ambrosio on the next night, decided to 
double-cross Ambrosio and to drive the horses 
away to the rough land, leaving Ambrosio to 
hold an empty bag? If this were not true, then 
how had a strong band of Mexicans come upon 
the corral in this dark and secluded run? There 
could be but one answer: Ambrosio had been 
indiscreet in his sending of radio messages and 
had given his location away. 

“ More than likely some of those Mexicans 
have their radio-compasses and know as well 
how to use them as we do,” he whispered to 
himself as, having buckled on his two automatics 
and looked to the clip in his rifle, he stole forth 
into the night. 

The camp fire had been damped with ashes 
and earth. No light coming from this would 
give his position away. The moon, however, 


90 


The Desert Patrol 


was just rising above the mountains to the right 
and was sending yellow bars of light across the 
open spaces between trees. 

“ Bad! ” he murmured to himself, “ very bad. 
Take a pot-shot at me if I don’t look out, and 
that will be the end of the adventures of Curlie 
Carson.” 

Dropping on hands and knees, he crept to¬ 
ward the corral. Clyde had already disappeared 
in the dark. Over to' the right a revolver 
popped; to the left an automatic rifle went spit- 
spit-spat. It was with a creepy feeling that he 
moved forward. He could not help wondering 
how it felt to have a bullet strike you. He had 
heard it described and read in books about it, 
but he wondered how it really did feel. 

“ Might know soon enough,” he told himself. 
Then he began to wonder if the game was really 
worth the cost. 

“ Wouldn’t be if it were all for myself,” he 
whispered, “ but when it’s for others, that’s 
different. That’s — ” 

He had heard a metallic click off to the left. 


91 


Clyde Wounded 

Hardly had he dropped behind a giant fir than 
a rifle cracked and a bullet spat against the 
tree. 

“ Getting hot,” he told himself, as, with steady 
nerve, he swung his rifle about to answer the 
Mexican’s call. 

“ Bing-bang! ” His rifle sounded like a can¬ 
non in his ears. Hardly had he dropped flat 
when a second bullet sang over his head. , 

“ Some places I’ve been that I like better than 
this one,” he told himself, as, leaping to his feet, 
he dashed down the hill, a dozen feet at each 
step. 

As for Clyde, he was more accustomed to 
these battles of the border than was Curlie. 
Once he had left the tent, he glided directly 
down the hill toward the corral and did not 
stop until he was in full view of two Mexicans 
who were bent over letting down the last rails 
of a section of the corral fence. There was a 
disturbance among the horses as if some 
stranger was attempting to drive them toward 
the gap in the fence. 


92 


The Desert Patrol 


“ Shots made 'em panicky," Clyde told him¬ 
self. “ If ever they get outside the corral, 
seven Indian demons couldn't hold 'em. Can’t 
let ’em get out, that's all." 

Dropping flat upon the earth, he rested his 
rifle across a branch of a young fir tree, then 
lay there motionless. He was straining his eyes, 
trying to make out something. He braced him¬ 
self on one elbow that he might see better. 
That he was in great danger of being spotted, 
he knew well, but, born and bred on the plains, 
he was equal to such a situation. 

The horses, urged on from behind, moved 
toward the gap. As the foremost of them pre¬ 
pared for a dash for freedom, with a wild 
look in his eyes and with a mad, defiant snort, 
he leaped forward. 

Then it was that Clyde's rifle cracked four 
times in quick succession. Strange to say, his 
bullets were not directed at the Mexicans wait¬ 
ing at the gap, nor at the one urging the horses 
on, but over the head of the horse-leader. 

That leader was Clyde's own pony, Colie. 


93 


Clyde Wounded 

He was trained for many things. Time and 
again when there was danger of one sort or an¬ 
other about, Clyde had shot over hib head to 
warn him back. As the bullets now sang close 
to his ears, he plunged backward. Instantly 
there was a panic among the horses that sent 
them rushing backward into the depths of the 
corraL So sudden and terrific was this rush 
that it did not seem possible for the one who had 
been urging them forward to escape from their 
trampling feet. Naturally enough, this did not 
trouble Clyde. He had matters of his own to 
attend to. The horses, now in a genuine panic, 
would doubtless come surging back as soon as 
they had crashed against the upper wall of the 
corral and had found it holding firm. Some 
way he must reach that gap and close it. But 
the two Mexicans were to be accounted for. 
True, they had disappeared, but Clyde knew all 
too well that they were lying in wait for him. 

With the suddenness characteristic of a cow¬ 
boy, he decided to rush them. That would be 
the last thing they would expect. 


94 


The Desert Patrol 


A wild whoop rent the air as with an auto¬ 
matic in either hand he dashed down the slope. 
There came a scream of alarm, a shot rang 
out, then he aimed an automatic at a fleeting 
shadow and emptied the gun without pausing 
in his mad dash. 

It was enough; the Mexicans had flown. 
With the characteristic speed of a born corral 
builder, he replaced the first eight poles, then 
dropped back into the shadows to wait. Then 
it was for the first time that he noticed there 
was blood on his sleeve. 

“ Dirty dogs winged me,” he muttered as he 
tore away his sleeve and made a bandage for 
the flesh wound in his arm. “ Hope Curlie 
kills six of them, that’s what.” 

Curlie had not been idle. Having rested in 
a dark spot for a moment, and having been 
told by his wonderful ears that a group of raid¬ 
ers were holding a consultation up the bank to 
the left, he decided upon a bold stroke. Drop¬ 
ping upon hands and knees, guided by the sound, 
he crept forward until he could distinguish the 


95 


Clyde Wounded 

whispered words of the enemy. He caught his 
breath as he realized that there were at least 
seven or eight of them. 

“ Doesn’t matter,” he told himself stoutly. 
“ In the dark one Yankee is a host. So here 
goes.” 

Drawing both automatics and aiming them 
in the general direction of the whispers, he 
touched both triggers, then held both fingers 
firm until the clips were empty. The result 
was surprising, even to himself. In the forest 
the sound was like a bunch of giant fire¬ 
crackers all set off at once. What the effect 
was upon the Mexicans, he could not tell. That 
he must guess, for, almost before the echoes 
had died away, he was resting behind a giant 
pine, slipping new clips into his automatics as 
he pondered the situation. 

If later developments, or the lack of them, 
were to be considered as indications of success, 
the work of Curlie and Clyde appeared to have 
turned the tide of battle; the Mexicans disap¬ 
peared as if by magic. And though a sharp 


96 


The Desert Patrol 


watch was kept up all night, not a sign of one 
of them was to be seen. 

In the morning, as he revisited the scene of 
the night attack, Curlie saw that some heavy 
body had been dragged across the needles at 
that spot. 

“ Somebody laid one of them out,” he told 
himself. “ Hope it wasn’t me. Don’t like the 
idea much. Deserve it well enough, though, I 
guess. One thing sure, I hope that is the end 
of that business. This assisting a bunch of 
rogues in retaining their stolen booty is not to 
my taste. However, when it’s done with a good 
and lawful reason, and no laws are broken 
doing it, it’s not so bad.” 

Clyde was slow in admitting that he had 
been shot in the arm, but once he had shown 
his wound to Curlie, that young surgeon in¬ 
sisted on drawing through the bullet hole a 
clean silk handkerchief, which was good enough 
surgery, though somewhat painful. After that 
he filled the wound with antiseptic cotton and 
bound it up well. Since Clyde was a clean- 


97 


Clyde Wounded 

living boy whose blood ran clear and pure 
through his veins, it did not seem probable that 
any great harm could come to him through 
this flesh wound. 

That morning as Curlie rode up the trail for 
a morning canter, he came at last upon a spot 
where the trail which wound down the mountain 
far below him might be seen. To his surprise 
he saw a caravan of ponies twisting its slow 
way over that trail. 

“ There they go,” he murmured. “ They’ve 
given us up as a bad bunch. Good riddance.” 

As he shaded his eyes, he saw that two ponies 
were carrying double and that two had empty 
saddles. “Two of them wounded and being 
supported by their fellow raiders,” he told him¬ 
self. “ Wish it’d be a lesson to them. But of 
course it won’t. Once a fellow has decided 
that the world owes him a living and that he 
will get it by robbing and pillaging, it is about 
as hard for him to change as it is for the 
desert suddenly to raise a crop of hay without 
seed or water.” 


98 


The Desert Patrol 


Having delivered this bit of moralizing, he 
turned his pony about and headed toward camp. 
He had a good deal of planning and some little 
work to do this day. That night things would 
be doing. 

“ Til be glad to get into it,” he told himself. 
“ To be fighting my own battles and the battles 
of those who have trusted me by making me a 
member of the Secret Service of the Air, that's 
life. That’s the Real Thing, spelled with a 
big ‘ R ’ and a big 4 T ’ ” 


CHAPTER IX 


PLOTTING A WAY OUT 

The night's adventure had deepened Curlie’s 
contempt for Ambrosio and his crowd. “ I 
have no doubt," he said to Clyde, “ that they 
are dangerous enough in their way, but their 
way is a treacherous one rather than a brave 
one. Look at these two mix-ups with the 
Mexicans. See how they passed the buck. Let 
us do all the real fighting both times. Oh, old 
Pete's boys come in telling all kinds of wild 
tales about hairbreadth escapes and scalp-rais¬ 
ing encounters with greasers that outnumbered 
them three to one, but where's their proof? 
There were few shots fired besides the ones 
from the Mexicans and from us. If any others 
were fired they were shot from behind a big, 
safe tree' and into the air, I'll be bound." 

“ Looks that way," grinned Clyde, stroking 
99 


100 


The Desert Patrol 


his wounded arm, “ and that makes our little 
stunt to-night seem a whole lot easier. ,, 

“ Yes, with the aid of a little thunderstorm 
I think it is going to be a snap.” 

“ Thunder,” said Clyde, in a surprised tone. 
“ How you going to get a thunderstorm to your 
order?” 

“ Easy enough,” laughed Curlie, dragging a 
small box from beneath his blankets. • “ In this 
little box I have one of my tricks. 'You’ve heard 
of canned music? Well, I have here a canned 
thunderstorm. It’s the very essence of one. 
In its present form it is considerably reduced. 
It’d sound about like a rat rolling a walnut 
across the floor, but once it had been drawn out 
to its original volume by my little giant of a 
radiophone outfit, it has all the thunder of the 
original.” 

“ Stop talking in riddles and tell me what 
you got,” demanded Clyde. 

“ Well, to express it in childish language, I 
have in here a miniature phonograph and a 
record on which has been caught the tones of a 


101 


Plotting a Way Out 

thunderstorm. When it has been amplified 
about twenty times it has all the force of a 
terrific storm. Horses won’t know the differ¬ 
ence between it and the real thing.” 

“ Bravo!” whispered Clyde. “ If there is 
anything in the world that will stampede those 
colts that are used to dry farms and irrigation 
it is a well-managed thunderstorm. That’ll help 
a lot. Once they get stampeded, Ambrosio and 
his gang won’t see us for dust.” 

“You understand the whole plan then?” 

“ Guess I do. Better go over it again to make 
sure.” 

“ My idea is this,” said Curlie thoughtfully. 
“ Those two Indian guides and the two Mexicans 
will be up on the Devil’s Door Step at ten to¬ 
night. Ambrosio will go up there to meet them 
and to confer about terms. Pete will go up 
there with him. Anyway, I figure he will. He 
is a suspicious old robber and is jealous of 
Ambrosio. He won’t take any chance of being 
double-crossed at the last minute. He’ll go, I’m 
sure of it.” 


102 


The Desert Patrol 


“ And that leaves Pete’s four lubber boys to 
guard the corral.” 

“ Probably one or two to watch and the 
others to go to sleep.” 

“ Couldn’t ask for a better thing. To slip 
up on one of them, bind and gag him, is about 
as hard as killing a porcupine with a shotgun.” 

“Well, to-day sometime when- there’s a 
chance, you are to cut the wires that bind a 
set of poles in the corral wall, down at the lower 
side. You’ll bind the ends of the wires up 
with rawhide thongs so they’ll look natural but 
so it will take only a dozen slashes of a knife to 
bring the whole section to the ground. When 
Ambrosio and Pete go up for the big powwow, 
I’ll set my thunderstorm going. That’ll get the 
horses all excited. When you drop the bars, 
and get behind them with Colie, they’ll be away 
as if shot from a gun. Ambrosio and his best 
man will be a mile away and may not get on to 
what’s going on until it’s all over. Anyway, 
they’ll be too far behind to catch up. We can 
handle Pete’s boys if any of them have the nerve 


103 


Plotting a Way Out 

to ride up to us, which I think they haven’t.” 

“ Drive the whole drove of horses plum into 
Mogordo and put ’em into the village corral, 
eh? Then let the owners of the stolen ones 
come in and claim them. Then get the whole 
country hot-footing it after the thieves. Guess 
that’ll put a crimp in their raiding propensities 
for a spell.” 

“ Well, I guess!” 

“ What do you think Ambrosio’s plan is?” 

“ Think he intends to give us the slip. Plan’s 
to let us go to sleep to-night like two innocent 
little babies. At one a. m. or thereabout, he 
and his gang open the corral and slide noiselessly 
down the canyon. Morning finds them out on 
the broad desert. Before anyone can get up 
with them they will be away in the rocky hills 
which are death and destruction to all but 
Mexicans and Indians.” 

“ Think he’d take our ponies with him — 
Canary and Colie?” 

“ Not a doubt about it in my mind. Good 
ponies. None better anywhere. He likes good 


104 


The Desert Patrol 


ponies. Besides, if we are afoot we won’t 
make him the least trouble, for the very reason 
that we won’t ever get closer than the Pacific 
ocean to him.” 

“ Well, there’s two plans, Ambrosio’s and 
ours. Time will tell who wins. Justice is on 
our side; that’s a lot. But after all the motto 
of the desert is ‘ Trust God and keep your 
bronco shod.’ We’ll try to do a little of both.” 


CHAPTER X 


AT THE ZERO HOUR 

A strange and interesting scene was set that 
night as the hour for the great adventure ar¬ 
rived. A mile up the canyon, beneath immense 
overhanging rocks, two Indians and two Mexi¬ 
cans, having arrived at the appointed trysting 
place, sat around a fire of pine knots. As the 
moments passed they did not stir. Each one 
was busy with his own thoughts, which, had 
one been able to read their minds, might have 
been found to be the darkest and direst medita¬ 
tions in the mind of man. Each, wrapped in 
his blankets and in solemn meditation, sat and 
stared at the fire. 

Making their way through a thick growth of 
black tamaracks, Ambrosio and Pete moved on¬ 
ward toward the fire beneath the cliff. They, 

too, were silent. Pete was by nature a silent 
105 


106 The Desert Patrol 

man. Ambrosio was made so by the importance 
of the business of the night. Fifty horses, colts 
and ponies now occupied the corral. If all went 
well, by this time next night these would 
be safely hidden away in a maze of impreg¬ 
nable, rocky fastnesses. Within less than a 
week of that time, he, Ambrosio, would be rid¬ 
ing slowly back from Mexico counting his gains 
in terms of hundreds of dollars. 

In the tent of Ambrosio, three bulky forms 
lay stretched out beneath the blankets, three of 
Pete’s sons. The other guarded the corral. 
Ambrosio had said that two should guard the 
corral while the other two slept. But Ambrosio, 
according to the thoughts of these youngsters, 
was altogether too cautious. Had they not 
vanquished the Mexican bandits who had at¬ 
tempted to raid their corral? Who then would 
attack them? What need was there for a dou¬ 
ble guard? Would they not all be astir at mid¬ 
night? Were not the tents to be struck at that 
hour? Were not they to drive the horses away 
down the canyon at that time? Who could tell 


At the Zero Hour 


10 7 


what chance they would have to sleep after 
that? All these questions they had asked them¬ 
selves after Ambrosio had departed. Then, by 
cutting cards, they had decided who the unlucky 
guard should be. This matter disposed of, the 
three of them had promptly gone to sleep. The 
fourth was left to go down to the corral, grum¬ 
bling at his luck as he went. Worse luck it was 
than he thought, too. 

In a clump of trees above the horse corral 
Curlie Carson was busy at work. Having 
clamped his radiophone instruments and the 
miniature phonograph to a board made by hew¬ 
ing down a splintered slab of a fallen pine, he 
strapped the whole affair to the back of his 
saddle. In good time he would carry saddle 
and all down to the corral and fit it to Canary’s 
back. For the present, he allowed it to rest 
there on the ground. When this work had been 
done, he sat cross-legged on the ground and, 
with hands folded across his feet, with all but 
his ears and his brain asleep, he sat thinking 
and dreaming. 


108 


The Desert Patrol 


Strange and somewhat disturbing thoughts 
they were that came crowding into his mind. 
He realized quite well that in planning to drive 
the horses down the canyon he was acting in 
an unusual manner. He strongly suspected that 
the best of the horses had been stolen, yet this 
remained to be proved. If it were not true, and 
there was no absolute proof that it was, then he 
and Clyde would be in a tight place, providing 
Ambrosio could prove that it had been they 
who had run the horses away. However, Curlie 
was sure enough that his suspicions regarding 
Ambrosio would prove well founded to risk it. 

“ Even so,” he told himself, “ it’s dangerous, 
mighty dangerous! It’s twenty miles down 
grade to Mogordo. In that twenty miles there 
are stretches of trail that wind along over preci¬ 
pices four hundred feet high. With fifty horses 
before us and Ambrosio and his wild Indians 
and Mexicans behind us, we stand a chance of 
being killed or taken. And as for mine, 4 Give 
me liberty or give me death/ Ambrosio will 
never get me alive. I know his kind too well 


At the Zero Hour 109 

The thing he wished to do to Old Baldie when 
he was escaping told me enough.” 

With a half hour’s start and the horses in 
a mad stampede, he hoped, however, to reach 
Mogordo with no greater loss than a wild pony 
or two gone over the grade. 

Whatever misgivings he may have had re¬ 
garding the guilt of Ambrosio and his gang 
were quickly dispelled by a whispered message 
from Clyde. Like some mountain lion prowling 
in the night, Clyde came creeping out of the 
dark. 

“ Say! ” he whispered hoarsely, “ what do 
you think? Remember the white pony we saw 
tethered out before Bill McKee’s ranchhouse?” 

“ The one with the black spot between his 
eyes ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Yes, I remember; finest little pony I ever 
saw, barring your Colie and my Canary.” 

“ Barring none,” Clyde whispered back. 
“ There was never another such pony in all the 
desert land. He’s a full blooded Aztec pony, 


110 ' The Desert Patrol 

descended from how many generations one can¬ 
not tell, right back to the time when one Aztec 
king rode his forbear through the splendid 
villages where gold glittered like bright pebbles 
in a stream, in the long ago before the blood¬ 
thirsty Spaniards massacred them for their 
treasure. And I’ll tell you,” he leaned far for¬ 
ward and whispered in Curlie’s ear, “ that pony 
is out there in the corral.” 

“ No! ” Curlie straightened up in astonish¬ 
ment. “ That — why that couldn’t be true.” 

“ I know it couldn’t,” admitted Clyde, “ but 
the trouble about it is that it is true. I just 
saw him there. There never was another such 
pony. I couldn’t be mistaken.” 

“ But the ranch is twenty miles away. How 
could he come up here?” 

“ Let’s see. Let me think.” Clyde bent his 
head in deep thought. 

As for Curlie, he was thinking too. He re¬ 
membered the pony, remembered other things 
about that ranchhouse as well. He had gone 
there to find Clyde and had been invited to eat 


At the Zero Hour 


111 


dinner with the family in the cool, inviting liv¬ 
ing room of the splendid rambling old structure 
that housed the rancher’s family and all of the 
men who served as corral men, cowboys and 
what not on the vast estate. 

He had had dinner with the family. Only 
two members of the family had greatly im¬ 
pressed him — tw'o girls. Curlie was not a 
lady’s man, but he had an eye for beauty all 
the same. When beauty came before his eyes, 
he did not look the other way unless modesty 
bade him do so. One of these girls was un¬ 
mistakably Spanish. Her dark eyes and olive 
skin told that. There was fire in those eyes 
and trouble for one who might cross her will. 
The other girl was Yankee. With her clear 
blue eyes, her frankly freckled cheeks and her 
bare brown arms that showed the bulge of the 
well-rounded muscles of an out-of-doors girl, 
she had impressed Curlie strongly from the first 
and he had hoped that she might come his way 
many times before he left the desert. There 
was a curious light in her eyes as she looked at 


112 


The Desert Patrol 


him too. It was as if those eyes were saying to 
him, “ You have known me before. Don’t you 
recognize me? ” 

If the eyes had said this her lips had said 
nothing of the sort. So he had ridden away 
with Clyde across the desert, promising only to 
return when their difficult and dangerous task 
was done. 

“ Let me see,” he whispered to himself. 
“ What was her name? I can’t —yes, now I 
have it — Viola, Viola Martin; that was it.” 

“ Do you know who that pony belonged to ? ” 
Clyde broke in on his thoughts. 

“ Who?” 

“ Viola Martin.” 

Curlie started as if Clyde had read his 
thought. “ That’s queer,” he mused. “ I just 
had her in my mind.” 

“ Don’t wonder,” chuckled Clyde. “ Lots of 
fellows have had her in their minds — have had 
sometimes myself. But listen; I know now for 
dead certain that these horses have been stolen.” 

“ How? ” 


At the Zero Hour 


113 


“ That's all the way they would get Snowball 
— that's the white pony's name. Viola would 
never voluntarily part with him. He was her 
father's only legacy to her, the only thing he 
left her. You see," he whispered, settling down 
upon the bed of pine needles, “ Viola’s an 
orphan. Her father was a prospector down on 
his luck. He drifted into the ranch half dead, 
carrying this child of his, Viola, on his shoul¬ 
der. She was only about eight years old then. 
Behind him, following like a dog, was a white 
colt with a black spot in his face, Snowball. 
Martin died a few days later. Viola was 
brought up at the ranch and, outside of one 
year — last year I believe — she has always 
lived there. Snowball has been her constant 
companion, the only reminder she has of her 
poor father, so you see she would not part with 
him. He was stolen. She’s crying her pretty 
eyes out about him right now. How they got 
him I don’t know; most likely one of the Indians 
stole him and brought him with him when he 
came up to make powwow with Ambrosio and 


114 


The Desert Patrol 


Pete. Anyway, here he is and we must save 
him for Viola, save him if we don’t save a 
single other horse; save him sooner than my 
Colie and your Canary. We can get other 
ponies that will do for us. Viola can never get 
another inheritance from her father.” 

Curlie thrilled at the thought. Here was a 
grand new motive for being brave and daring. 
He was to be like a knight of old riding into 
battle to save the happiness of a beautiful lady. 
What an incentive for bold and fearless action! 
He pictured himself even now riding Canary 
up to the ranchhouse with Snowball following 
on behind. He pictured Viola’s surprise and 
delight. And what would she do and say to 
him. What did fair ladies do and say to their 
knights in the brave days of old? 

Suddenly he tore himself from this reverie. 
“ When did you say Viola was away from the 
ranch?” he demanded. 

“ Last year, I think.” 

“ Where did she go? ” 

“Went to live with an uncle in some city, 


At the Zero Hour 


115 


I believe. Traveled with him, I think. Then, 
if I remember right, something happened to the 
uncle and she came back here. Just what hap¬ 
pened I don’t know. I do know that they said 
Viola was nervous and sort of all shot to pieces, 
if you know what I mean, when she came back. 
She’s all right now, though.” 

“ You don’t know where they were travel¬ 
ing?” Curlie was making a brave attempt not 
to seem excited. 

“ Why, no, I never heard. People don’t tell 
everything, especially to mere cow-punchers.” 

“ Don’t know what city she went to live in 
with her uncle?” 

“ Nope.” 

Again Curlie lapsed into silence. His mind, 
however, was busily at work. What it was say¬ 
ing to him was this: “ What if Viola is the 
Whisperer? The Whisperer is down here 
somewhere; her home is on this desert. She 
might have been in Chicago last year and sent 
me those messages to the secret tower room. 
(Told of in “ Curlie Carson Listens In.”) She 


116 


The Desert Patrol 


may have traveled with her uncle in Alaska. 
Something surely happened to some strange 
man up there who was acc&'mpanied by the 
Whisperer. (Told of in “On the Yukon Trail.”) 
And what happened might well have shaken the 
nerves of a girl much older and stronger than 
Viola.” 

“ But pooh-pooh,” he whispered, shrugging 
his shoulders. “ Such a complicated plot belongs 
to the movies. It couldn’t happen in real life.” 

“ Time we were moving,” Clyde whispered. 
“ Tune up your instruments and stand by. 
You’ll get the signal for the beginning of the 
thunderstorm soon. The zero hour is close at 
hand. And remember, old man; live or die, we 
go over the top strong. Here’s to Viola and 
Snowball and to all the poor ranchers who need 
their little treasures of horse flesh. We’re go¬ 
ing to take them back and see that the rascals 
who led them away are properly punished.” 

For a second he gripped Curlie’s hand; the 
next he faded away into the dark. 


CHAPTER XI 


OVER THE TOP 

Down on a sloping bank close to the corral 
Oscar, the biggest, laziest and flabbiest of Pete's 
boys, sat dozing in his watch. As Clyde stealth¬ 
ily approached him, his mind repeated some lines 
he had learned when a boy in school: 

“At midnight in his guarded tent 
The Turk lay dreaming of the hour 
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, 

Should tremble at his power.” 

Just what Oscar might be dreaming of, he 
could not know. He fancied it might be of the 
time when he might be riding Colie over the 
desert. 

“ That time, my boy, will never come, ,, he 
whispered as, moving from behind a giant pine, 
he came at last within arm's length of the slum- 
berer. 


117 


113 


The Desert Patrol 


The next instant, quick as a flash of light he 
threw both arms about the young giant’s neck. 
Before he had fully awakened, Oscar found him¬ 
self struggling against bands that held his feet 
and hands fast, and striving to utter screams 
through a tightly-bound red handkerchief. 

“ Sleep in peace, my beautiful young brigand,” 
Clyde murmured as he shot away toward the 
corral. At the fence he paused to lift his voice 
in imitation of a pony’s neigh. So perfect was 
this imitation that two of the lonesome, captive 
ponies in the corral answered it. 

That was the signal to Curlie. Almost in¬ 
stantly there came from up the canyon the first 
deep rumblings of a mountain thunderstorm. 
As its first echoes rolled down the valley below, 
wild ponies began to paw the ground and to 
pace about in a restless manner. 

Clyde, having crept through the bars, dragged 
a saddle after him. Uttering a peculiar call, 
he brought his pony Colie to his side. Having 
saddled him and strapped his rifle to the saddle, 
he led him to the side of the corral. 


119 


Over the Top 

The peals of thunder grew momentarily loud¬ 
er. Their volume doubled and redoubled, they 
went rolling down the rocky walls like the beat¬ 
ing waves of the sea. The three sleeping boys 
in the tent slept on. The bickering men and 
Indians beneath the rocks hastened in their en¬ 
deavor to reach a settlement. The thunder was 
all machine made, but this they could not know. 
From their position beneath the ledge, they could 
not tell but that a terrific thunderstorm was 
ready to roll down from the peak of the moun¬ 
tain. 

Ambrosio, who still had dreams of capturing 
the wild horse, Old Baldie, was for another day’s 
stay at camp. Pete, who was beginning to have 
visions of capture and the hangman’s rope, was 
all for getting away. Each of the two Indians 
claimed the white pony of Viola as part of his 
share of the plunder. A Mexican had also set 
envious eyes upon the beautiful beast. So they 
argued their great and evil opportunity away. 
For all the time, as the thunder increased in 
velocity and power until it seemed it would shake 


120 


The Desert Patrol 


the very mountains down upon them, the horses 
in the corral grew more and more restless until 
they were little more than a rolling mass of 
horse flesh pitching first this way, then that, 
like cattle on a ship in a storm. 

Just at this juncture there came the flash of 
a knife and the whole side of a panel of poles 
fell away. A second flash and the gap was com¬ 
plete. Clyde had cut the rawhide ropes that 
held that section of the corral up. The horses 
were now free to go. 

They required no urging from Clyde, who had 
mounted and was ready to ride hard and fast. 
The snow-white pony led the way. There was 
a wild snort from many a restless charger, then 
a mad stampede. 

From the lips of Ambrosio, as he rose, startled, 
from his seat on the rock, there came an oath 
and a half suppressed, “ What was that?” 

“ Nothing. Thunder, that’s all,” Pete ex¬ 
claimed impatiently. “ Sit down and let’s get 
this cursed business over with.” 

“ Thought I heard the tramp of horses. 


121 


Over the Top 

Thought I heard them snort,” said Ambrosio. 

“ Stomping in the corral. ’Fraid of the storm. 
They can’t get out. Boys’re watchin’. Can’t 
get away. Sit down, I say! ” 

He emphasized this last remark with a heavy 
thrust at Ambrosio’s knees which brought him 
down all in a heap. With a curse and an angry 
flash of his black eyes the boy lapsed into silence. 

The horses, in spite of Pete’s assertion, could 
get away. In fact they had gotten away. With 
the white pony at their head, with Clyde riding 
madly at their heels, with the thunder rumbling 
behind them, they went plunging down the can¬ 
yon. Still the boys in the tent slept and still the 
one on the bank rolled over and over in a mad 
attempt to loosen his bonds. 

One pony remained in the corral, Canary. As 
he heard the rumble of the stampeding horses’ 
feet, Curlie picked up his saddle and with it 
the radio equipment and, with the thunder all 
but deafening him, carried them to the corral. 
Canary bucked and shied from side to side as 
Curlie tried to mount. 


122 


The Desert Patrol 


After a moment spent in trying to quiet him, 
Curlie at last gave it up and, snapping off the 
batteries, lulled the storm into a sudden and most 
surprising calm. He next strapped on his saddle, 
mounted his pony and went racing away after 
his friend Clyde, who was already a full half 
mile in the lead. 

“ Hope we’ve got enough of a start,” he told 
himself. “ Hope they keep on discussing terms. 
Hope—” 

Suddenly his thoughts broke off short. What 
was that he heard behind him? Was it a genu¬ 
ine peal of thunder or was he hearing in his 
own mind the echoes of his improvised storm? 
Turning to look back, he beheld a vivid flash of 
lightning that illumined the heavens above the 
mountain peak. There, beyond mistake, was 
a tremendous and awe-inspiring thundercloud. 
Blacker than night itself, it appeared to be rap¬ 
idly blotting out all that lay before it. 

“ Huh! ” grunted Curlie with a shiver, “it’s 
as if I had imitated the doings of the gods and 
had brought the wrath of them down on me. 


123 


Over the Top 

It's a genuine storm and a terrible one.” He 
shivered again. Times enough he had heard of 
the awful storms that swept down from the 
mountain peak bearing death and destruction in 
their thundering onrush. In his mind he pic¬ 
tured the walls of water he heard old men of the 
mountains speak of. He could only hope they 
were not in for such a storm. 

“ I am afraid of that,” he told himself, “ more 
afraid than I am of Ambrosio and Pete and 
their murderous Indians. But we have to take 
what we get in this life. Canary, a little more 
speed if you can stand it!” He patted his 
faithful little pony, then went shooting away 
through the night. 


CHAPTER XII 


ONE OVER THE PRECIPICE 

Whether it was the sudden cessation of Cur- 
lie’s artificial thunderstorm or the sound of 
horses’ feet rushing down the canyon that at 
last roused Ambrosio, it would be hard to tell. 
But he was at last roused. So certain that 
something had gone wrong at the camp was he 
that Pete could no longer control him. With an 
oath he went plunging down the slope from the 
cliff toward the corral and the others could but 
follow him. 

What he saw as he rounded the corner of the 
corral brought him up speechless. The corral 
empty, unguarded, appeared to stare at him 
like a dead face. The next instant he was bel¬ 
lowing names: 

“ Oscar! Jack! Mike! Curlie! Clyde! Where 
are you?” 


124 


125 


One Over the Precipice 

As he received no response he began cursing. 
Then catching a sound of rustling pine needles 
down to the right of him he plunged downward 
to fall over Oscar’s prostrate form. This young 
rascal, once his bonds had been cut, told as much 
as he knew of what had happened. 

It was just at this moment that Ambrosio 
caught the first resounding roll of the real 
thunderstorm. He held his cheek to the breeze 
for a moment, then, appearing to remember their 
position, thought for a second. After that, he 
went plunging up the bank. The others, seem¬ 
ing to read his thoughts, went racing after. 
There were no longer any horses in the corral. 
His own pony and those of Pete and his boys 
were rushing down the canyon with the rest. 
The only remaining ponies were the four be¬ 
longing to the two Indians and their companions, 
the Mexicans. These were standing tied to some 
small pine trees in a hidden gully. It was evi¬ 
dent that “ first come, first served ” was to be 
the order of the day. Only four of them could 
ride after the fleeing horses. Only four might 


126 


The Desert Patrol 


ride on before the storm. And, perhaps, only 
four could escape death from the onrushing 
deluge of the storm. Who could tell? What 
wonder their labored breath came in deep pants 
as they labored up the hill. 

Ambrosio, Pete and the two Indians won the 
race. The Mexicans were left to curse in Span¬ 
ish and to seek the best refuge they might from 
the storm. As for Oscar, he was so fat and 
incompetent and so dazed from his recent ex¬ 
periences that he did not participate in the race 
at all, but stood staring at the corral as if he 
thought some of the ponies might return and 
carry him away. 

Meanwhile, moment by moment, the storm 
increased in violence. Curlie Carson, as he 
raced away after his companion and the stam¬ 
peding horses, trembled as he heard the terrific 
claps of thunder that shook the hills. Nothing 
in all his life had been like it. He had witnessed 
thunderstorms on the prairies, in Arctic forests, 
on the Atlantic, but these were but play storms 
compared to the deafening roar and roll and the 


127 


One Over the Precipice 

vivid flashes of light that played up and down 
the canyon. He had once been in a great forge- 
room at night, had caught the gleam of a thou¬ 
sand forge fires, had heard the ding and din of 
five hundred triphammers. The storm was 
like that, only a million times more awe-inspir¬ 
ing and terrible. There came a roll that was 
like the thunder of an express train going over 
a rocky embankment; wroom-wroom-wrook — 
crash-crash-crash! There followed a blinding 
flash of lightning that seemed to end at his 
very horse’s feet. It illumined the canyon until 
he could catch the surge of tree-tops a half mile 
above and read the terror written in the eyes 
of horses a quarter of a mile below. 

At the next flash he turned his head to look 
anxiously back to the mountain peak where the 
storm had gathered. To his consternation, he 
saw not one black pillar of storm, but two. The 
two seemed to be moving toward one another. 

“ If — if they meet,” he whispered hoarsely, 
“ — then it will be a cloudburst and then God 
have mercy on us all. A wall of water—” 


128 


The Desert Patrol 


He did not finish, for a deafening roar that 
left all others but echoes of a spent storm came 
crashing in his ears and the next instant a great 
section of crag just before him went crashing 
down from above to go thundering into the abyss 
below. 

“ The trail!” he breathed. “It may have 
blocked it. Clyde might have been beneath it. 
Oh, my God! If ever I get out of this—” 

Again his gaze was riveted upon the storm. 
There could be no mistake. The clouds were 
closer together, and together they were moving 
down the mountainside. They would meet 
somewhere above the canyon. 

“ And then —” he breathed —“ and then! ” 

The next flash showed him something else — 
horsemen coming down the trail a half mile 
above the point where he now was. 

“ Ambrosio and some of his men, four in all,” 
he breathed. “ Let them come; we’ll beat them 
yet.” 

As for Clyde, leaning far forward in his 
saddle, keeping pace with the fleeing horses, 


129 


One Over the Precipice 

watching their every move, he gave no heed 
to the storm nor to what might be happening to 
the men behind him. The white pony, still in 
the lead, raced madly forward. II was for her 
safety more than any other that he was con¬ 
cerned. 

“ If I can't take Snowball back to her mis¬ 
tress/' he told himself, “ what do the others 
matter ? " 

Once, as she rounded a sharp bend in the 
trail where to the left lay an abyss a sheer hun¬ 
dred feet deep, the white pony slipped, fell and 
rolled over once. Clyde caught his breath. One 
more roll and she was gone. But with feet in 
air, the beautiful beast, with all the wisdom of 
a human being, threw herself back in the direc¬ 
tion of the wall. The next instant she was on 
her feet and speeding on as before. 

At another time, as the trail narrowed, a wild 
pony colt, striving no doubt to catch up with 
his mother somewhere in the maddened throng 
ahead, was crowded too close to the cliff's edge. 
Clinging there for an instant, he at last lost his 


130 


The Desert Patrol 


footing and with an almost human scream went 
plunging to his death on the rocks below. 
Clyde’s head whirled, his heart grew sick as he 
listened for the dull crash that was mercifully 
lost in a terrific burst of thunder. 


CHAPTER XIII 


A STRANGE GUIDE 

And now the thunder suddenly ceased; the 
lightning no longer flashed; the wind lulled to 
a whisper. There came a calm more terrible 
than the storm. From the trail above Curlie 
caught the thud of hoofbeats and from below 
many more. Other than these there was no 
sound. There was no light. The moon and 
stars had been suddenly snuffed out. The sky 
was black as ink. The snap of a twig, the roll 
of a pebble, startled him. It was as if the end 
of the world were at hand. He felt the cold 
perspiration start out upon his brow. What 
was the meaning of it all? 

There was not long to wait, for again the 
storm broke forth. To this thunder, that which 
had gone before was but firecrackers set off by 
some child. To this lightning, the lightning that 

131 


132 


The Desert Patrol 


had gone before was but the flickering of a 
candle about to go out. It was blinding, terri¬ 
fying beyond description. Curlie’s mind was 
paralyzed by it. He rode on, but he no longer 
thought. He felt the mad rush of wind, caught 
the wild, burning flash on flash, felt the crash 
of sound in his ears and rode on, feeling but 
not thinking at all. 

Then the storm broke. Torrents, floods of 
water. His pony staggered under the sheer 
weight of it. He felt it pour over his shoulders 
and down his back as if he were beneath a 
thundering waterfall. Yet he knew in a vague 
sort of way that the heart of the storm was not 
here; that it must be far above on the trail. 
What must be its volume there? There was 
not long to wait. Came a strange, a terrifying 
sound, that was neither falling rain nor rolling 
thunder. It had the sound of a thousand army 
trucks rolling down the trail. As Curlie glanced 
back, a flash of light showed him the faces of 
the men who pursued him. They appeared white 
and startled; seemed no longer bent on pursu- 


A Strange Guide 133 

ing him, but in seeking safety. As one of them 
turned his head to look back he appeared to 
reel in his saddle, paralyzed by the terror in¬ 
spired by what he saw. Still, to Curlie, the 
terrifying thing was out of view. 

He had been riding hard all this time. The 
trail narrowed at this point. Above reared sheer 
cliffs; below yawned an abyss. The band of 
horses, wisely led by the white pony, had nar¬ 
rowed down to meet this new emergency. This 
had slackened their pace. Curlie suddenly found 
himself abreast of Clyde. 

“Wha — what is it?” he screamed. 

Cupping his hands, Clyde shouted back, 
“ Cloudburst!” 

“ Much danger?” 

“ Danger ? ” Clyde seemed struck dumb by 
the question. ‘‘Danger!” he sputtered at last. 
“ It’s sure destruction and death if it catches 
us here. Water, man! A mile of water straight 
up. A river upside-down. A lake on edge and 
moving like mad! ” 

He looked at the horses beyond him. “ I can 


134 


The Desert Patrol 


drive them mad with three Apache screams — 
send ’em over the cliffs. Give us more speed 
that way. Shall I ? ” 

“The white pony?” 

“ He’d go with the rest.” 

Curlie shook his head. “ Let’s wait.” 

In spite of their great peril Clyde grinned. 
“ I knew you was that kind,” he shouted as a 
fresh burst of thunder added to the ever-increas¬ 
ing rumble of a thousand army trucks threat¬ 
ened to drown his voice. 

Now the four horsemen came nearer. Only 
two turns in the trail shut them from Curlie and 
Clyde. If they caught up, what would they do? 
Would they shoot? Or, like wild beasts on the 
edge of a deluge, would they cower and seek 
their own safety rather than revenge? 

Back somewhere in the distance, as the light¬ 
ning flashed, Curlie saw things leaping high in 
air. This at first puzzled him. What could it 
be? Too large for birds, the objects leaped high, 
to fall straight down. At last, with a shiver, 
he made out one object. It was an uprooted tree 


A Strange Guide 135 

of good dimensions. The next he guessed to be 
a great fragment of rock. The wall of water 
was at that point. It was rushing down with 
such force that it tossed rocks and whole trees 
high in air. What would horses or humans be 
in such a flood? For a second he was tempted 
to tell Clyde to drive the horses over the cliff. 
The next, he thought of Viola and the white 
pony and his lips were sealed. 

Just what had happened, he now knew quite 
well. The two storms, meeting, had whirled 
high in air. In their whirling they had formed 
a great funnel of moisture. Cooled by the high¬ 
er air, this funnel had turned to water. The 
mouth of this funnel, wide as the Mississippi, 
deep as the Atlantic, had poured its waters into 
the narrow gorge. Those waters, bearing all 
before them, were now racing at a mad speed 
to swallow them up. The cliffs still hemmed 
them in. Was there relief in sight? This he 
could not tell. 

Just at this moment something appeared which 
surprised and inspired him. As he strained his 


136 


The Desert Patrol 


eyes to look ahead, he saw that the white pony 
was no longer in the lead. But what horse was 
this that had taken his place? His coat, gleam¬ 
ing like burnished gold in the swift flashes of 
light, his mane waving in spite of the rain, he 
was rushing on like some general before his 
host. 

The answer came in an instant. It could be 
only one horse. How he had come Curlie 
could not say. This new leader was none other 
than the wild king of the mountain forests, Old 
Baldie himself. Somehow, in this revelation 
there was comfort. It was as if, lost in a moun¬ 
tain wilderness and about to perish, they had 
come upon a guide who knew every foot of that 
wilderness and who could lead them to safety. 
And in this feeling he was not so far wrong. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE FACE IN THE FLOOD 

Cupping his hands, Curlie shouted above the 
storm, “Baldie^ 

Clyde strained his eyes for a look and then 
his anxious face relaxed into something like a 
smile as he echoed back, “Baldie!” 

They were still walled in on either side. In¬ 
deed, as they descended they were entering 
more deeply and yet more deeply into a trap. 
They were descending to the level of the stream. 
The stream ran between walls of stones. The 
mountain of water would soon come rushing 
between those walls and, carrying everything 
before it, go rushing on to arid valleys far be¬ 
low. Once caught in that whirling flood, no 
living creature could hope to escape death. 

Slowly but surely the four men from behind 
gained upon them. Just as surely, the flood 


138 


The Desert Patrol 


gained upon them all. Now the roar of it, that 
had seemed the thundering of a thousand can¬ 
nons, became deafening. Trees they had passed 
but moments before went whirling high in air. 
Rocks that would have crushed them, had they 
been in their path, splashed into the flood. 
Nothing remained where the flood had passed 
save rugged, barren walls and a swirling mass 
of water. Still the horses struggled on and 
the two boys made the best of their way after 
them. 

There came then a little gleam of hope: 
The wall to the left broke away into a steep, 
sloping ascent of earth and shale. Yet even 
this seemed an impregnable barrier. Surely no 
horse could climb it and as for a man, if he 
were to attempt the ascent, he would lose foot¬ 
ing and be pitched into the flood that by then 
would be bellowing at his feet. 

It was at this dramatic moment that Curlie’s 
confidence in the outlaw horse began to seem 
warranted. At a certain spot in the trail he was 
seen to come to an abrupt halt, to face about. 


The Face in the Flood 139 

to distend his nostrils into a mighty snort which 
might well have been a general’s command to 
his men, then to set his feet hard upon the steep 
incline. The next moment he rose, as if by 
magic, above the level of the trail. It was 
hard climbing. His muscles bulged and trem¬ 
bled, but he climbed on. It became evident that 
there was here something of a narrow trail 
leading upward. Beyond doubt in some wild 
chase when raiders were hot upon his trail this 
noble creature of the wild had climbed over 
this steep path to safety, leaving his pursuers 
to wonder into what cloud of thin air he had 
vanished. Now he was using this same trail 
to save his own life and the lives of those who 
followed him. One by one the free horses set 
their feet upon the incline and began to climb. 
Each one added something to the stair-step like 
impressions in the earth, and so made it easier 
for those who came after. One small pony, 
older and feebler than the rest, having climbed 
half a hundred yards, suddenly slipped, to go 
plunging upon the rocks. The others, like 


140 


The Desert Patrol 


soldiers charging a rampart, paid no attention 
to this one but climbed straight on. 

As for Curlie and Clyde, they looked on in 
admiration and wonder not unmixed with 
anxiety. Would they all make it in time? 
Would there remain time for them and for their 
ponies to follow? To attempt to break in ahead 
of any of these free horses they knew would 
be madness. They could do nothing but wait. 

So a moment passed. The deafening thunder 
of the flood grew a hundred times more deafen¬ 
ing. It was as if all the munition depots in 
all of a vast battle-front had been hit and set 
off at once. It was as if all the thunderstorms 
of all the past had been recalled to tear away at 
the cliffs of that canyon. Yet, above it all, 
they heard, as in a dream, the approaching 
hoofbeats of horses and knew that Ambrosio, 
Pete and the Indians were all but upon them. 

“ Now! ” breathed Clyde, when the suspense 
had grown unbearable. “ Now! ” 

The last free horse had taken the ascending 
trail. Throwing Colie’s reins over his back. 


The Face in the Flood 


141 


Clyde spoke but one word to him. He was 
away up the hill, tearing up the earth as he 
went. Curlie followed Clyde’s example. Then 
with the damp breath of the flood fanning their 
cheeks, they began to climb. The flood was 
high, a mountain. Had they waited too long? 

With panting breaths and sobbing chests, 
they climbed for their lives. Now they had 
placed ten yards between them and the trail 
level — now thirty — now forty. 

Curlie hazarded a look back. What he saw 
chilled and horrified him. Behind him came 
Ambrosio, Pete and the two Indians. But 
their horses? They had been left in the trail, 
left to the destruction of the flood. Undirected, 
these ponies, unaccustomed to the mountain, 
and unled by any of their kind, would not at¬ 
tempt the ascent. They must perish. A hot 
rush of anger caused Curlie to hesitate. He 
was tempted to turn back and to pitch the faith¬ 
less riders who would desert their faithful 
steeds in a moment like this back into the path 
of the flood. Better judgment came to his 


142 


The Desert Patrol 


rescue and he again began to climb. 

He had reached what promised to be a safe 
level when he again looked back. The canyon 
was already filled with black, swirling water. 
This water was rapidly rising. The ponies of 
the renegades had disappeared. The Indians 
had outclimbed the flabby-muscled Pete. He 
was now struggling over a slippery bit of a 
shelf thickly strewn with shale. Suddenly there 
came a cry. He had slipped, was plunging 
downward. Now he caught at a scrub pine 
growing on a rock, but the pine tore away. 
Again he plunged toward the swirling flood. In 
the white light of a flash, Curlie caught a 
glimpse of his face. Such a look of fear was 
on it as he hoped never again to see. Still he 
glided toward destruction. Then, as if reach¬ 
ing up an arm for him, the waters seized him 
and sent him whirling away. 

Once in the flood Curlie caught sight of his 
face. It was ghastly white. Then, in the midst 
of tangled tree trunks and whirling eddies of 
foam, he disappeared forever. 


The Face in the Flood 143 

“ He paid the price of the life he has lived,” 
was Curlie’s mental comment. “ Nature and 
society have said that a man shall work if he 
is to live, and that he shall exercise if he is to 
be fit to fight life’s battle. He chose to live off 
the labors of others. He refused to keep him¬ 
self fit by honest labor. Now he is gone. Had 
his muscles been firm, had he had the courage of 
an honest man, he would not have lost his grip 
at the critical moment. Yet it is a hard thing 
to see. I would have saved him had it been 
within my power to do so. 

“ Wouldn’t wonder,” he mused a moment 
later, “ if he was the man who insisted on leav¬ 
ing the ponies to be food for the flood. It was 
like him.” 

Turning his face upward, he again began to 
climb and, fifteen minutes later, found himself 
galloping after Clyde and the free horses, who 
were now racing away down the gradual slope 
on the other side toward the desert that gleamed 
yellow in the distance. 


CHAPTER XV 


DARK SHADOWS OF PERIL 

Curlie Carson sat limp in his saddle as he 
rode away after his companion. His arms 
hanging down at his side, his knees knocking 
against the saddle as Canary galloped on, 
seemed to say that he had fainted or was 
asleep. He was neither of these, but was in a 
sort of stupor, the kind of stupor that comes 
over one after he has passed through an ex¬ 
perience that has worked on his every emotion 
and drawn his nerves tight as drum-strings, to 
leave them at last loose as bell-ropes. 

He was still thinking, but in a listless sort of 
way. The experience he had passed through, 
he was telling himself, was the most thrilling, 
the most terrible, the most terrific that could 
ever come to him. In this he was partly right 
and partly wrong. It had been the most ter- 

144 


145 


Dark Shadows of Peril 

rific thing that any person is likely to wit¬ 
ness, but as for danger and thrills, Curlie was 
destined to pass through an experience, and that 
within a few short hours, which would cause 
the blood to mount to his cheek and send such 
thrills racing up his spine as had never coursed 
there before. His companion in this last des¬ 
perate encounter on the desert was to be the 
most interesting and mysterious character that 
it had ever been his privilege to meet. 

He felt something of the shadow of this 
great coming adventure pass over him like a 
cloud as he straightened up in his saddle and 
urged his pony on that he might overtake 
Clyde. There were plenty of things to fear. 
Pete was dead, but Ambrosio, the treacherous 
brains of the outlaw gang, was at liberty. So, 
too, were the Mexicans and Indians and^ Pete’s 
four boys, providing none of these had been 
caught by the flood. All of these held a deep 
grudge against him and Clyde. That they would 
not rest in peace until that grudge was satisfied 
or they had met definite defeat, he knew quite 


146 The Desert Patrol 

well. Pete’s boys, urged on by Ambrosio, would 
attempt to avenge the death of their father. 
That in their narrow brains Pete’s death would 
be charged to him, Curlie knew quite well, and 
Ambrosio and his Indians would blame him for 
the loss of their wealth of stolen horses. So 
the matter stood. 

As for the horses, he had saved them, for 
the time being at least, from Ambrosio and his 
gang. This much had been done toward the 
winning of his golden spurs and that greater 
prize, the privilege of looking for the first time 
upon the face of the Whisperer. But those 
horses at the present time were racing madly 
toward the desert. On this side of the ridge 
there had been no cloudburst. The earth was 
hot and dusty. These horses, led as they were 
by the fiery Baldie, would race away mile on 
mile. They might even cross the line into 
Mexico. There they might fall an easy prey 
to Mexican raiders on their own soil. There 
Curlie and Clyde would be helpless. 

All these things Curlie thought through as 


147 


Dark Shadows of Peril 

he raced along after Clyde. At last, having 
caught up with him, he called on him to pause 
for a brief consultation. 

“ Can’t catch up with them until they are 
fagged,” was Clyde’s terse spoken judgment. 
“ Couldn’t turn ’em if we did catch up. This 
is a mob of horses gone wild. Best thing we 
can do is to separate. You go back to that 
wireless station of yours out there in the desert 
and I’ll stay with them and keep track of 
them, at least.” 

“ Why go back to the station? ” Curlie asked 
in a puzzled tone. 

“ Broadcast a message stating just how things 
stand and calling for aid in bringing this bunch 
of horses back to Mogordo. You’ll be heard 
by some who own horses up there on the moun¬ 
tain plateau. They’ll all imagine their horses 
have been stolen and will rush to our aid. 
There’ll be a lot of others who will come from 
a purely brotherly feeling for others in trouble. 
That way, once we get the horses turned, I’ll 
have plenty of help to drive them back and to 


148 The Desert Patrol 

defend them against Ambrosio and his men, 
if they should get some new ponies and come 
after me.” 

“Think he could?” asked Curlie. 

“ Who could what? ” 

“ Ambrosio get new mounts for his men.” 

“ Surest thing in the world. He’s been liv¬ 
ing somewhere, hain’t he? So’s Pete and his 
boys. There are other ponies and probably 
other gangsters where they came from. Within 
twenty-four hours or less Ambrosio will be hot 
on our trail. Say! ” he exclaimed suddenly, “ I 
don’t know’s it’s safe for you to go out there 
to your desert station alone. They may catch 
your message and come out to silence your sta¬ 
tion forever.” 

“Let ’em come,” said Curlie grimly, patting 
his rifle. “ That’s what I’m on the desert for. 
That’s how I win my golden spurs. Get on 
off after the horses. They’re behind a ridge 
already. I’ll get the message off, never fear.” 

With that he wheeled his pony about and 
went racing away. 


149 


Dark Shadows of Peril 

“ Never saw a white-collar feller like that,” 
muttered Clyde as he turned his pony to the 
broad trail of the horses. “ Didn’t know they 
could be that good.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


LOST IN A SANDSTORM 

Curlie rode across the desert with a spirit 
of high glee coursing through his whole being. 
He had overcome the reaction from his recent 
experiences. He was now quite himself again 
and ready for any adventure. Having looked 
at his watch he was amazed to see that it was 
but an hour past midnight. He caught his 
breath in surprise. From the time he had set 
the artificial thunderstorm going to the present 
moment had been less than four hours. It 
seemed to him now as he looked back upon it 
that the experiences of a year had been crowded 
into that brief space of time. 

The desert held an indefinable charm for 
him. He felt it now as never before. He rode 
with feet high upon his pony’s shoulders. He 
had been obliged to throw away his “ chaps ” 
150 


Lost in a Sandstorm 


151 


to save himself from the flood. Now he was 
riding in the uncertain moonlight through a 
vast forest of cacti and sage. The cacti were 
armed with thorns as sharp as hatpins and 
quite poisonous. The sage gave forth a strange, 
pungent odor to the damp air of night. The 
moon spread deep purple shadows everywhere. 
Save for the soft pat-pat of his pony’s feet, 
the occasional thud-thud of a frightened jack- 
rabbit or the distant challenge of a coyote, the 
night was still. 

This stillness, contrasting so strangely with 
the roar of thunder and the terrific din of the 
flood that had so recently deafened him, seemed 
almost ghostly. As he drew near to his cabin, 
standing dark and alone among the sand dunes, 
it seemed to him that he could almost see ghostly 
figures flitting about it from corner to corner. 

“ Ghosts of adventures yet to come,” he 
whispered to himself as he dropped the reins 
over Canary’s head and put his hand to the 
latch. 

If the cabin had seemed ghostly from with- 


152 


The Desert Patrol 


out, it seemed a hundred times more so from 
within. Even after he had struck a light and 
had searched every nook and corner for any 
intruder who might have entered during his 
absence, the impression still persisted that there 
were other beings within the cabin. 

“ That’s what comes from the invention of 
the radio,” he whispered to himself. “ A 
radio bug is always imagining that he is not 
alone when in reality he is. There are ghosts 
of men about him, ghosts of those who have 
spoken on the radio and will speak no more. 
Their voices are dead but their echo is still in 
the air, or so it seems to him. In time there 
may come a radio so fine that it will enable 
those who have spoken to us in life on earth 
and have passed on to another world to talk to 
us once more. Then who is to control the air? 
You can set your radio-compass and spot a 
living man who is using the radio in an illegal 
way, but if ghosts get to breaking in, why, how 
are you ever going to locate them? If you do 
locate them, how are you ever to catch and 


Lost in a Sandstorm 


153 


punish them, since they cannot be seen at all?” 

All this bit of whimsical meditation was pass¬ 
ing in his mind as he went through the motions 
of tuning up his instruments, testing them here 
and there and at last seating himself on his 
stool by the sending-table. A moment later he 
was speaking in a slow, well-modulated tone, 
telling in a few well-chosen words of the events 
of the night. He did not go into detail but 
did say that a drove of horses had been stolen 
from the larger drove on Big Saddle Mountain; 
that they had escaped the flood and were now 
racing away over the desert toward Mexico. 
He did call upon all honest cowboys and ranch¬ 
ers to turn out and assist in returning the 
horses to their owners and in hunting down 
and capturing the rustlers. He gave the general 
location of the horses when last seen by him 
and the direction they had taken. After that he 
settled back in his place, with his back against 
the wall to wait and listen in. 

He had little hopes of being answered. “ Be 
lucky if I’m heard at this time of night,” he 


154 


The Desert Patrol 


told himself, “ especially by anyone who will 
lift a hand to help us. The stations that are 
open at this time of night are gambling dens. 
They are 1 more likely to be on Ambroses side 
than ours. If they get my message, they'll 
know well enough where it comes from. If they 
know where to look for Ambrosio they'll get 
word to him and he’ll come hot-footing it over 
here to — ” 

Pausing in his meditation he sat with wrinkled 
brow for a full minute. After that he dropped 
from his seat, took a rifle down from the wall, 
slipped a clip into it, placed two other clips 
close beside it on a low table, drew an automatic 
from its holster, examined its charge, placed it 
beside the rifle, then with a sigh of relief 
settled back into his place. 

“ Let him come,” he muttered. “ He’ll find 
me prepared.” 

As for Clyde, he was making the best speed 
he could after the fright-maddened horses. He 
could not make his best speed, for where he 
rode there were plenty of thorny cacti. Like 


Lost in a Sandstorm 


155 


Curlie he had been obliged to leave his chaps 
behind. His pony, too, must be protected from 
those murderous thorns. What the punishment 
to the racing horses must be, he could only 
guess. 

“ Take a week to get them back in form,” 
he told himself as, dodging a specially vicious- 
looking tree of cactus he urged his pony for¬ 
ward. 

The air was still, but now he caught a breath 
of wind. Turning to glance back, he was 
shocked at what he saw behind him. The air 
was black. One by one the stars were disap¬ 
pearing. It was as if a great curtain was 
being drawn up from earth to highest heavens. 

“ The storm,” he breathed. No cloudburst 
now; it had transformed itself into a new species 
of airy demon — a sandstorm. “ What is to 
become of the horses and of Colie and me 
now ? ” he asked himself as he settled back in 
the saddle. 

He drew his horse up to a full halt and sat 
there staring while a minute passed; then with 


156 


The Desert Patrol 


a muttered, “ Have to try to keep in touch with 
them some way,” he hurried on after the fast 
disappearing horses. 

Then the storm broke upon him, a wild, 
whirling mass of yellow murk. It swallowed 
him up and lost him the horses in a second of 
time. Turning every dune into a volcano that 
smoked sand, it went whirling and howling on¬ 
ward. The air was filled with sand, fine, sifting 
sand that set his teeth gritting, that poured 
down his neck and stole into every opening in 
his garments. Beating against the flanks of 
his pony, it filled his mane and tail so full of 
sand that they turned brown and gray where 
but a moment before they had been jet black. 

Fortunately, they were going with the storm. 
To face it would be ten times worse. Even 
as it was, his eyes smarted with the cut of the 
sand. 

Faithfully Colie plodded on. Holding him 
to a course in the general direction of the free 
horses* trail, he fought doggedly forward. With 
head bent low, with eyes half closed, he gave 


Lost in a Sandstorm 


15 7 


himself over to the inevitableness of the storm. 
There was no way to escape. The nearest 
shelter was miles away. He did not know 
the direction to that shelter. It was true that 
he might protect himself to some extent by dis¬ 
mounting and covering himself with the blanket 
strapped to the back of his saddle, but this 
he did not care to do. He had hopes of com¬ 
ing up with the horses and of remaining with 
them until the storm had passed. In this he 
was not to be disappointed, for as he strained 
his eyes for a look, he caught sight of a blurry, 
dark mass straight ahead. This was the drove. 
As horses always do in a storm, they had halted 
their mad race and, having bunched together as 
closely as possible, stood with backs to the wind, 
weathering the storm as best they could. 

“ Well, Colie, old boy, here we are,” Clyde 
breathed as they came up with them. 

Some of the nearest ponies sidled away as 
he approached, but others — those used to men 
— did not move, so at last the solid mass of 
them still confronted him. 


158 


The Desert Patrol 


“ Now for a little comfort,” he sighed as he 
dismounted stiffly to shake a little cataract of 
sand from his shoulders. 

Dragging his heavy blanket from the saddle, 
he drew it over his head like a small tent. Then, 
with Colie’s reins drawn over his wrist, he sat 
down upon the sand. 

The song of the wind was in his ears, the 
howl of it and the everlasting pelting of sand 
against his improvised shelter. From time to 
time he lifted a corner here or there to shake 
away loads of sand that had settled there. 

He was very weary and sleepy as well. The 
night had been long. The strenuous exertion, 
the unusual excitement, had tired him more 
than he knew. His hands were wrapped about 
his knees. His head drooped more and more 
until at last he fell into a troubled sleep. 

How long he slept he did not know. When 
at last he awoke, it was with the consciousness 
of a heavy weight on his back that was crush¬ 
ing the life out of him and of sounds of strange 
movements that, appeared to be all about him. 


Lost in a Sandstorm 


159 


The weight he found to be sand that had heaped 
up in a mound from behind and had all but 
buried him alive. This was soon shaken off. 
The wind was still howling; the storm was at 
the height of its fury. But what was this move¬ 
ment about him? 

Hastily throwing off his blanket, he stood up. 
To his astonishment, he found himself com¬ 
pletely surrounded by horses. In their restless 
shiftings the drove had moved about until he 
was in the very center. What surprised him 
still more was that, standing side by side with 
Colie, and helping to form a sort of barrier 
of protection for him as he slept, was Snowball, 
the white pony of Viola Martin. 

“ Sort of feel that you and me and Colie are 
kin, don’t you?” he whispered with a catch in 
his throat. “ Well, I can’t say you’re far wrong, 
and by all that’s good we’ll all get out of this 
together, if getting out of it for any of us is 
at all possible.” 

The next instant he put his hand to his ear 
and listened. Had he caught the sound of a 


160 


The Desert Patrol 


human voice above the storm? He thought so. 
Yes, there it was again, a strange, wild shout 
of joy or triumph, he could not tell which. 

“ That’s not Curlie, nor it ain’t any white 
man,” he breathed. “ It’s Indian or Mexican. 
Now what sort of rotten luck have we run into? 
Seems like this storm was bad enough without 
any scrap on top of it. Say,” he said to Colie 
suddenly, “ we came a long way — are we in 
old U. S. A. or in Mexico? 

“Can’t tell?” he asked grimly. “Well, 
neither can I, but it makes a lot of difference 
to you and me which it is.” 

At that he rose, looked to the clip in his rifle, 
brushed the sand from his saddle as well as he 
could, then, having mounted, lay flat down in 
his saddle to shade his eyes as best he might 
and to peer away through the gray murk of 
sand. 


CHAPTER XVII 


IS THIS THE WHISPERER? 

For an hour Curlie Carson in his radio cabin 
busied himself at alternately sending messages 
regarding the stolen horses and listening in for 
any message which might be sent by the rene¬ 
gade Ambrosio or that might have been dis¬ 
patched in answer to his call. He had little 
hopes of being heard by any legitimate station 
at that time of night. Just when he was think¬ 
ing of giving it all up and turning in for ten 
winks, a rude gust of wind struck his cabin 
and with it there came the rattle of sand against 
the tarpaper wall. 

“ Hi! ” he exclaimed starting up, “ A sand¬ 
storm! That makes it worse for Clyde. A 
whole lot worse. Got to get through some- 
how.” 

Just then a call came to his waiting ears, a 
161 


162 The Desert Patrol 

whisper and a very faint one. Yet his sensitive 
ears caught it. 

“ Hello — hello, Curlie. We got your mes¬ 
sage. You were brave to send it. They’re after 
you. You will be in great danger if you stay 
many more hours at the station. You had 
better — ” 

Strain his ears as he might and did, he could 
not catch the words that followed. “ Static,” 
he mumbled. “ Always bad in a storm.” 

Again he strained his ears as the message 
came more clearly. “ Clyde will be all right. 
Men are going to help him to round up the 
horses. You had better — ” 

Curlie caught a stifled scream, the scream of 
a girl, over the radiophone. It was the first 
time he had heard the mystery girl’s voice 
raised above a whisper. “ Wouldn’t have heard 
it then,” he told himself, “ if something serious 
hadn’t happened.” 

For a few minutes he sat thinking. His 
head was in a whirl. He was in great danger 
— the Whisperer had told him that — yet it 


163 


Is This the Whisperer? 

was not of himself he was thinking, but of her. 
That she, too, was in grave danger, he had 
guessed by the involuntary scream. How could 
he best aid her? That was the question upper¬ 
most in his mind. How could he help her at all 
when he did not as much as know where she 
was? 

He started at this question and stared down 
at some figures on a pad before him. Then he 
stared at his radio-compass. 

“ Huh! ” he exclaimed, “ the human mind is 
a strange and wonderful thing. Looks as if I 
had measured her distance with the compass 
and marked her location without knowing I 
was doing it at all — done it so many times be¬ 
fore that my unconscious mind worked it out all 
by itself. 

u And by the everlasting sands! ” he whis¬ 
pered, rising and pacing the floor, “ she was 
nearer this cabin when she sent that message 
than ever she was before. Not three miles 
away, right out on the desert! I wonder if 
she is coming this way? Wonder if I should 


164 


The Desert Patrol 


go out to meet and escort her in? Some of 
those dirty rascals may have come across her 
on the trail! ” 

Fairly overcome with excitement, he still 
forced his mind to quiet counsel. He listened 
to the howl of the wind, to the rattle of sand 
on the window panes. He walked to the win¬ 
dow and tried to peer outside. 

“ Black as a London fog,” he muttered. 
“ Couldn’t see twenty yards. Chances are ten 
to one I’d miss her if I went out. Then, if 
she succeeded in reaching this cabin, she’d find 
herself alone, unprotected. No, I’ll not go; I 
stay.” 

Seating himself resolutely upon his stool, he 
again placed the headpiece over his ears. 
“ Might get something more from her,” he 
murmured. 

A minute passed, two, three, four, and yet no 
sound came to his listening ears; only the rude 
burst of the storm that now and again shook his 
cabin told him that the tempest was gaining in 
violence. 


Is This the Whisperer? 165 

Then, of a sudden, there burst upon his ears 
the rude growl of a man’s voice. 

“ Boys’re out after him, ten of ’em. They’ll 
get him dead to right.” This short message 
was followed by a laugh that was more like the 
growl of a lion than anything human. 

“ No friend of mine,” murmured Curlie, “ has 
a laugh like that. So they’re after him? Who’s 
him? Wonder if I am? Ten of them in a 
sandstorm. That sounds bad if they locate the 
cabin. But maybe they won’t.” 

He thought of broadcasting a call for aid, 
but decided that he did not as yet have suffi¬ 
cient proof that he was in real danger. He 
thought again of the girl and hoped with all 
his soul that if she had started for the cabin 
she might reach it in safety. 

In the midst of these thoughts he was brought 
up standing. Puncturing the zip of the storm, 
there had come the rat-tat-tat of an automatic 
rifle. 

“Shooting!” he exclaimed. “That sounds 
like business.” 


166 The Desert Patrol 

He was hesitating between grasping his rifle 
and sending a call for help, when some object 
came crashing against his door, sprang the 
latch and sent it whirling in. 

A wild, eddying blast of sand driving in 
through the open door half blinded him. He 
saw but indistinctly the person who fell across 
the threshold. Thinking only of the wildly 
whirling storm, he sprang forward and closed 
the door. Then he looked down at the im¬ 
promptu visitor. One might have said the 
person was a slender cowboy. Dress would 
have told that. Chaps, a brown affair that 
might have been a shirt, a broad sombrero 
held on by a strap under the chin, this was the 
picture that lay at his feet. As for the face, 
it was so incrusted with sand dust as to bear 
the appearance of a masked face. One thing 
alone told Curlie that this was no boy: A heavy 
mass of dark brown hair, torn at by the wind, 
had been thrown into great disorder. This 
hair could not belong to a boy. 

“ The Whisperer! ” he breathed to himself. 


167 


Is This the Whisperer? 

All this time the girl lay there panting. Now 
she raised herself and pointing at the door 
murmured brokenly: 

“ Bolt — bolt it.” 

Curlie complied with her request. 

After that she sat staring at him in a dazed 
sort of way. It was then that Curlie noticed 
that she clutched in one hand a rifle and in the 
other a bridle. 

“ Did he get away from you? ” he asked. 

“ Who? ” 

“ Your horse.” 

“I turned him loose. They’ll never get him; 
he’s too swift —lose himself in the storm in a 
minute. They — they — ” her voice rose almost 
to a shriek — “ they shot at me. The beasts!” 

Then, seeming to sense danger, she leaped to 
her feet and, still gripping the rifle, leaped to¬ 
ward the window. 

Reading her intention, Curlie pushed her aside 
to grip his own rifle. At that very instant there 
came the crash of a rifle and a bullet spat 
against the side of the cabin. 


168 


The Desert Patrol 


“ You lie down there on the floor,” he com¬ 
manded sternly. “ The sand is piled so high 
against the sides that it’s like a basement down 
there. Safe for you. Bullets can't get at you.” 

“ But I can shoot — shoot straight. I — I 
want to shoot,” insisted the girl. 

“ You may have to. Your turn may come 
soon enough. It's my turn now. Do as I 
say.” He pushed her gently to the floor. 

The next instant he was at the window. A 
second rifle cracked; a second bullet tore at the 
cabin wall. As he peered into the brown murk 
he caught sight of a gray streak flying through 
it, then another and another. 

“ Men on horses,” he murmured. “ They're 
circling the cabin and firing as they circle. Old- 
time Indian stuff. Might be effective enough 
at that. Time will tell. Can't see 'em well 
enough for a sure shot — mere streaks in a fog 
of sand — but I'll let 'em know I'm here. Wing 
'em too, if I can.” 

After pressing the lever of his automatic 
rifle and knocking out a corner of glass from a 


Is This the Whisperer? 169 

windowpane, he stood at attention with his 
finger on the trigger. 

“ Won’t — won’t they see you at the win¬ 
dow?” the girl asked. 

“ Too much sand fog for that,” he muttered. 
“ Anyway, if they can, let ’em.” 

In spite of the imperative demand for action, 
Curlie was thinking quite as much of the girl 
at his feet as of the gray streaks which had 
passed his window and might pass it again in 
a moment. He had not the least doubt that she 
was the mysterious Whisperer whom he had so 
long known in the air and whom he had so much 
desired to see. He had not seen her yet. One 
glimpse of her sand-masked face he had 
snatched, then the lights had flashed out. He 
had snapped them off himself. In such a situa¬ 
tion, lights were dangerous. Now, though the 
first faint streaks of dawn were beginning to 
show through the sand fog, the cabin was quite 
dark. He could distinguish the girl’s form as 
she crouched on the floor, but could tell nothing 
of her features. 


170 


The Desert Patrol 


As he thought of the position they were in; 
of the peril that surrounded them, as ten 
mounted horsemen, armed with rifles, circled 
their cabin, bent on their destruction, as he 
realized that he might have found the Whisperer 
only to lose her at once in death, that he might 
not really see her at all, his head whirled, his 
hand trembled at the rifle’s grip. 

Quick to catch the least motion, the girl read 
his thoughts from that tremble. She began to 
talk. Her tone was steady and slow, the most 
reassuring in the world. Curlie could easily 
have fancied that she was at an afternoon tea 
party telling some interesting experience. Her 
voice was low and deep. He liked that voice 
though he could not see the lips that spoke. 

“ You see,” she said, “ I caught your mes¬ 
sage in the ranchhouse but our aerial wasn’t 
very good, not good enough to send by, so I 
saddled up my pony and mounted my portable 
set on the back of the saddle. I rode out into 
the desert and sent up a kite with a perpen¬ 
dicular aerial on it. When I had done that, I 


171 


Is This the Whisperer? 

could hear plainly everything that came through 
the air and I could send as well. I rode toward 
your cabin because I thought I might catch 
your message better if I were closer up. Then 
I caught something that told me you were in 
danger. Of course I wanted to tell you about 
it. I started to speak to you when that dreadful 
sandstorm began. It set my kite tossing so I 
think it must have tangled my aerial.” 

“ That’s why I couldn't hear all that you 
said. That — ” 

Suddenly Curlie's figure grew tense. His eye 
ran along the barrel of his rifle, his finger tight¬ 
ened on the trigger, then his rifle cracked out 
its leaden message. 

“ Get him?” The girl asked the question as 
quietly as if he had been shooting squirrels. 

“ Can't tell. Hard to see them — gray 
streaks, that's all.” He dropped to the floor 
beside her. He felt her shoulder against his, 
her breath on his cheek. 

Three rifle bullets tore the wall above them. 
The next instant he was on his feet again with 


172 The Desert Patrol 

the simple comment, “ Thought they were go¬ 
ing to shoot.” 

“ Let’s see,” laughed the girl, “ where were 
we?” 

“ Your kite was caught in the sandstorm.” 

“ Yes. Then it sort of straightened out and 
I sent a little more of my message to you. 
After that the kite took a nose-dive for the 
sand and at almost the same instant a rider 
loomed up out of the storm. I knew he wasn't 
any friend of ours by the way he rode. An¬ 
other came in sight and when I started to run 
away, they shot at me three times.” 

“ The cowards! ” exclaimed Curlie. “ To 
shoot at a girl.” 

“Yes, and do you know, I thought I recog¬ 
nized one of them. I think it was Ambrosio.” 

“I haven't a doubt of it. I saw him try to 
shoot a horse once, a perfectly splendid horse, 
just because he had escaped from his trap.” 

“ Oh, no! Surely he couldn't! ” All the girl's 
passionate love for horses was expressed in this 
exclamation. 


173 


Is This the Whisperer? 

“ He did though. And for those things, if 
he’s circling this cabin with the rest, and if I 
can tell him from the rest, I’ll wing him if I 
can.” 

“If you don’t, I will!” There was fierce 
hate in the girl’s tone. “You can tell him, 
too. He doesn’t ride like the others. He 
stands in the stirrups and leans far forward. 
Sits straight as a ramrod.” 

“ We’ll get him. You’ll see.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


CLYDE'S FAREWELL TO COLIE 

As Clyde mounted his pony in the midst of 
the drove of horses, huddled together to pro¬ 
tect themselves against the sandstorm, he 
glanced from right to left and from left to 
right in the -hopes of catching sight of the man 
who had let forth the exultant shout. Through 
the sand fog he could see no moving object. 

His mind at once attacked the task of de¬ 
ciding who these newcomers might be. That 
it was not Ambrosio and his gang of raiders he 
knew well enough. They had been without 
horses the last time he saw them. For them to 
find new mounts and then to follow the trail 
of the horses over the desert in the midst of 
the sandstorm that obliterated all trails was im¬ 
possible. That it might be the band of raiders 
he had helped to drive from Ambrosio’s corral, 

174 


Clyde's Farewell to Colie 175 

two days before, he knew well enough. He 
knew what would happen if they discovered him 
here and recognized in him the person who had 
defeated their earlier attempts to capture this 
very drove. 

“ Don’t matter whether they recognize me or 
not,” he told himself. “ If they find me with 
the drove, they’ll do me in fast enough on gen¬ 
eral principles. Might not be them, though. 
Might be some other band of Indians or Mexi¬ 
cans, or for that matter, it might be some honest 
drovers, though I doubt it. Honest men are 
seldom out in a storm like this at this hour of 
the night, and they don’t let out any such blood¬ 
curdling yell when they sight a drove of run¬ 
away horses either.” 

“ Guess I’m in for it,” he muttered. “ There 
they come out of the fog. Two Indians and 
one Mexican. Others behind, too, I’ll be 
bound.” 

He flattened himself closer to the back of his 
pony, gripped his rifle and waited. The nose 
of the white pony was against his chest. “ All 


176 


The Desert Patrol 


right, old girl,” he whispered, “ I’ll get you out 
of this if I can. Do it for Viola’s sake and for 
your own sake. Trust me.” 

The raiders, and raiders they were, Clyde 
had not the least doubt of it now, came forward 
cautiously. No doubt they feared an ambush. 
That this drove of fine horses should be out 
here alone and unguarded on the desert, did not 
seem possible to them. Their rifles were cocked 
and in position for firing. Their eyes were 
shaded by hats drawn low. Still they moved 
slowly forward. It was evident they had not 
seen the boy in that unusual position, the very 
center of the drove. They began circling the 
drove. There was a whispered conversation go¬ 
ing on between them. Whatever might have in¬ 
spired that single shout, they were silent enough 
now. 

Just as they were passing almost from sight 
around the far comer of the drove and Clyde 
was thinking of bettering his chances of escape 
by working his way to the outer ring, there 
came a sharp exclamation, followed instantly by 


Clyde’s Farewell to Colie 177 

a shot. A bullet sang over his head. Instead 
of answering the shot, he dropped behind his 
pony and, still clinging to the saddle, began 
urging his mount through the densely packed 
drove to the right. He must have freedom from 
this jam if he was to save any part of the drove 
or even his own life. 

More bullets sang over his head. A wild 
pony at his left let forth an almost human 
scream, then crumpled in his tracks. The other 
horses began to rear and snort. Clyde’s diffi¬ 
culty in making his way out was doubled by 
the restless shove of the frightened horses. Just 
when he was despairing of ever making it, a 
gap appeared before him. The horses had 
broken rank. With one wild leap he was in 
the saddle and the next moment was galloping 
free from the pack. 

Heaving a sigh of relief, he again sank low 
on his pony’s back. His relief, however, was 
ghort-lived, for there came a crack off to the 
right and Colie stumbled and plunged headfore¬ 
most in the sand. 


178 


The Desert Patrol 


“ Got you! Death to 'em! ” he muttered. As 
he dropped behind his dying horse he sent such 
a volley of hot shots after the raiders as drove 
them scattering into the sand fog. 

“ That's that!" he muttered, “ but what's 
next? " 

As if in answer, he felt a damp nose upon his 
neck. Looking up quickly, he saw the white 
pony standing over him; Viola's own. 

“What! You here?" There was a choke in 
his throat. “ I promised to see you out of this 
and I'm bound if it won’t be you who’ll see me 
out of it." 

With a nimble spring he leaped upon the 
pony’s back. Then, without saddle or bridle 
but with rifle still in hand, he sent the pony 
racing away into the fog. 

Just when he thought he was free to go his 
way, a huge animal reared up out of the storm, 
a horse, ridden by a vicious-looking Mexican. 
The man took deliberate aim at the white pony’s 
head. But before his trigger was touched, his 
hands flew up and he went plunging down. 


179 


Clyde's Farewell to Colie 

“Take that!” exclaimed Clyde. “You’ve 
doubtless earned it many times over and that 
just saved the old U. S. A. the price of a trial 
and fifty feet of hemp rope. Now, Snowball, 
show us what you can do.” 

As if understanding his words, the noble 
animal sprang forward at a pace that brought 
them, in the space of a quarter of an hour, far 
from all danger. 

“ Well,” whispered Clyde as they slowed down 
to a walk and he straightened up in his saddle, 
“ we got away with our lives. Reckon we're 
lucky at that. But we left the horses to the 
raiders. Guess they’ll drive them over into 
Mexico and we’ll see them no more. I hate that 
for the sake of the poor dry-farmers and for 
Curlie’s sake. He worked hard to save them 
and so did I. But, Snowball, I’m sure they’ll 
all be glad you got out of it without a scratch 
on your white coat. And Colie,” he shook his 
head sadly, “ Colie, my own brave Colie, you 
are gone forever. I’ll never go racing over the 
desert with you again.” 


180 


The Desert Patrol 


In this speech he was partly right and partly 
wrong. In prophesying what would become of 
that drove of horses he overlooked one fact and 
that was that Old Baldie was still its leader. 
Old Baldie was no ordinary horse. No white 
man had ever succeeded in capturing and sub¬ 
duing him. It remained to be seen whether or 
not Mexicans could. As for Clyde, he did not 
think of this fact at all as he studied out his 
course home by the compass, then set himself 
to ride into the teeth of the storm. 

At this very moment, as Clyde caught the first 
faint glimmer of dawn, Curlie Carson was aim¬ 
ing his rifle at a gray streak that was skirting 
the horizon. 

“ Missed again,” he muttered as he studied the 
sights on his rifle and placed his finger again 
on the trigger, ready for another shot. 


CHAPTER XIX 

MYSTERY, THRILLS, ADVENTURE 

Curlie Carson had been in some tight places 
in his short life. He had known many a thrill 
and adventure. Mystery had followed him like 
a cloud. That had been a thrilling adventure 
which had carried him far into the Atlantic 
with a pleasure yacht, at last to set him afloat on 
a raft during a terrific storm. Ah, yes, that had 
been an adventure to be long remembered. Yet 
he had by his own ingenuity and cunning 
escaped. 

The night in which he followed the mystery 
man of many jewels out upon the Arctic ice had 
given him a tense moment. There had been 
thrills and mystery in the whole of his wild 
chase over the Yukon Trail. Yet he had re¬ 
turned in safety. 


181 


182 


The Desert Patrol 


Yes, Curlie had seen adventure, as you know 
well enough if you have read those other 
stories, “ Curlie Carson Listens In ” and “ On 
the Yukon Trail.” 

Yet there had never been a time in his life 
when so much of mystery, thrill and adventure 
had been packed into a single hour as that one 
which hie was now passing through. Close 
to him, so close that her shoulder now and 
then, as he stooped to dodge an expected bullet, 
touched his, was the mystery girl, the Whisperer 
who for months and months had haunted the 
very air over his head. He had not seen her 
face, did not yet know who she was nor what 
she was like, except that she was very brave. 
This he had guessed long ago. He might never 
know more. Any moment might be his last. 
Every now and again bullets rained against the 
cabin like hail. He had missed them all thus 
far. How much longer could it last? 

Here, then, was mystery, thrill and adven¬ 
ture, with the Whisperer at his feet, ten enemies 
riding about the cabin and shooting it up as 


Mystery, Thrills, Adventure 183 

they rode. No moment in his life had been more 
thrilling. 

As he thought of it in a vague sort of way, 
between times of firing at the gray phantoms, he 
imagined that he was back a hundred or two 
hundred years in the history of his country. 
The girl at his feet was his mate. Together 
they had moved far out into the unbroken plains 
to make themselves a home. Then, when their 
cabin was built and their patch of land plowed 
and sown, the savage, scalping Indians had 
come. Now, in the early fog of the morning, 
they were circling his cabin, riddling it with 
bullets. In time perhaps they would lay him 
low. They would burn his cabin, trample down 
his grain and carry his mate away captive. 

A bullet that burned his cheek wakened him 
from this reverie. This was no dream — it 
was reality. The men who circled the cabin 
were not Indians, at least not all of them. They 
were worse — white men and Mexicans gone 
wild. Angered because he had lost his ill-gotten 
gain of horses, Ambrosio had found new mounts 


184 


The Desert Patrol 


and new companions to join him in a raid on 
the cabin. His time in the United States, for 
the present at least, was over. He must flee to 
Mexico for safety. But before he went, that 
he might not be traced into Mexico by the in¬ 
visible finger of the radio, that he might feel 
it safer to return on raiding expeditions to the 
States, that his kind might feel safer in their 
robber trades, he had resolved to wreck and 
burn this new station of the Secret Service of 
the Air, in the hopes that the enterprise might 
be given up as a failure. Having resolved upon 
this, he would be only too glad to kill the young 
operator who had made this station a reality 
and had thus provided greater protection for 
honest men and their property. Here was peril 
of the worst kind and Curlie, as he slipped a 
fresh clip in his rifle, knew it right well. 

Suddenly he became conscious of some move 
on the part of the girl. What was she doing? 
Ah, yes, now he knew. She had put up a hand 
and had dragged his sending telephone to the 
floor beside her. She had twisted a button here, 


Mystery, Thrills, Adventure 185 

thrown on a switch there. And now she was 
talking in low, distinct tones. She was not 
talking to herself, nor to Curlie, but to anyone 
in the world who might chance to listen. 

“ Good girl! ” he breathed. “ That’s a fine 
idea.” 

She had set the sending instruments in order 
and was broadcasting a call for help. Slowly, 
deliberately, she told of their position and of 
their peril. She was asking that any honest 
men within sound of her voice come to their 
rescue. Suddenly, in the midst of this message, 
there was a sizzling snap. Curlie knew that a 
bullet crashing through the side of the cabin 
had cut a battery connection and had killed the 
radiophone. 

“ Oh! ” he groaned. 

The next moment his body grew tense, as 
he aimed his rifle and fired. He had aimed far 
forward of one of the gray streaks this time, 
and to his great joy saw the horse go crashing 
to the ground bearing his rider with him. 

“ That’s one of them,” he breathed. 


186 


The Desert Patrol 


Again he strained his eyes for a sight of 
them. They did not seem to be passing that 
way. Perhaps they had discovered that he was 
shooting from the window on that side. He 
shifted his position and again they flitted by, 
firing as they went. Having stooped to dodge a 
shower of bullets, he again rose and took steady 
aim at a fleeing figure. 

“ Doing fine,” he exulted. “ Another went 
down. That's eight. If they keep on missing 
PH have them terribly discouraged yet.” 

All this time he was conscious of a movement 
by the girl. She had found a knife in his kit, 
had stripped the broken wire, had spliced it and 
was again speaking in low, distinct tones to the 
world outside. 

Now she talked and now paused to listen. 

“ I can't get an answer,” she all but sobbed. 
“Oh! why don't they answer? I know they 
will come. But it may be too late.” 

“ Yes,” whispered Curlie huskily, “ it may be 
too late. Dawn is breaking. The sandstorm is 
abating. Their cover is fast disappearing. 


Mystery, Thrills, Adventure 187 

They are growing anxious, crowding in. They 
may get us any moment. If they storm the 
cabin we are lost. They are eight to our two.” 

“ But they are cowards.” 

“ Desperate cowards sometimes seem brave. 
They know that if we are not destroyed, they 
are lost; They’ll get us if it is humanly pos¬ 
sible.” 

Again he rose cautiously to peer out of the 
window. Then suddenly his face grew eager. 

“What is it?” she whispered. 

“ Ambrosio,” he whispered back. 

There could be no mistaking that ramrod-like 
rider. It was the first time Curlie had seen 
him. Perhaps like some cowardly general he 
had stood back of the line and had let his men 
do the fighting. But now he was here. 

Slowly Curlie raised his rifle. His finger 
was on the trigger; the aim was well before the 
racing rider, the shot must be a sure one. Then, 
just as his will said “ Fire ” he felt a savage 
push at his left shoulder and the next instant 
crumpled into a heap. 


188 


The Desert Patrol 


“They got you! Oh, they got you! The 
beasts! ” the girl screamed. The next instant 
she had snatched up her own rifle and crept to 
the window to take her fallen comrade’s place. 

“ No, no — you must not! ” Curlie protested 
feebly. 

“I can shoot!” she declared savagely. 
“ Shoot better than they can. In the West 
women fight beside their men. They shall not 
get us. I will kill that beast of an Ambrosio, 
watch me if I don’t.” 

Surprised by this violent outburst, Curlie re¬ 
lapsed into silence. The girl, her face flushed, 
her muscles tense, her breath coming quick and 
fast, had suddenly changed from a quiet whis¬ 
perer to a savage young Amazon. He gloried 
in her spirit. Especially did he like that word 
of hers, “ In the West, women fight beside their 
men.” She was but a girl and he a boy, but he 
liked her to think of him in this great emergency 
as “ her man*” 


CHAPTER XX 


“THEY HAVE COME” 

In the excitement of the moment Curlie tried 
to rise and take his place beside the girl. He 
could only crawl feebly across the floor. It 
was as if every muscle in his body had been 
controlled and given strength by a spring, and 
as if that bullet in his shoulder had found the 
spring and snapped it square off. He was con¬ 
scious, vividly conscious, of everything that was 
happening, yet he was powerless. 

Greater and greater amazement came to him 
as he watched the girl. In those days when she 
was known to him simply as the" Whisperer of 
the air, he had thought of her as his guardian 
angel, and so she had been. Now, as he caught 
the flush on her cheek, the flash in her eye, he 
thought of her as acting a new role, that of his 
avenging angel. Ambrosio had shot him. She 

would shoot him in turn. 

189 


190 


The Desert Patrol 


Now her rifle was lifted and aimed. He 
marveled at the steadiness of her aim. There 
came a crack of her rifle, then an exclamation 
of disgust. She had missed. 

Following his tactics, she ducked low as a 
patter of bullets struck the cabin. For a brief 
second her shoulder, which registered the wild 
beatings of her heart, was against his; then 
again she was up and at them. 

Curlie’s mind underwent agonies of suspense. 
Would her message be heard? Would help 
come? Would it arrive soon enough to save the 
girl? 

Who was this Whisperer? How had she 
come to be in Chicago at one time and in Alaska 
at another? How had she come here upon the 
desert and why? These were some of the 
questions that crowded his brain. Not once did 
he think of himself. Not once did he ask him¬ 
self whether this wound of his was a severe one, 
whether it would prove fatal. His thoughts were 
all for the Whisperer. 

So a full minute passed; a minute packed full 


“ They Have Come ” 


191 


of suspense as no other time in all his eventful 
career had been packed. Where were the raid¬ 
ers? Had they given up their circling tactics? 
Were they, at this very moment, stealing upon 
the cabin? If this were true, then the end was 
near. There were too many of them. The girl 
could not stand against them and he could not 
come to her aid. 

But no; just as he was giving up hope, he saw 
the girl dart to the west window, throw her 
rifle to position and fire — all in a second. The 
next instant she was doing a wild dance across 
the floor, while the bullets rattled like hail 
against the cabin. 

Curlie stared with gaping mouth. What had 
come over the girl? Had she gone stark mad? 

No, she dropped to his side to whisper, “ I 
got him! I got him! ” 

“Ambrosio?” he whispered hopefully. 

“ No, not Ambrosio; but he shall be next! ” 

Again she gripped her rifle and sprang to her 
feet. 

“ What a girl! ” Curlie whispered to himself. 


192 The Desert Patrol 

“ I didn't know there were any like her in the 
world." 

The next instant he was again staring at her 
as she placed her rifle upon the window-sill and 
took careful aim. She had grown rigid as a 
bronze statue. There could be but one solution 
to such a sudden change. 

“ Ambrosio? ” Curlie whispered hoarsely. 

As one in a trance she whispered back, “ Am¬ 
brosio.” 

Strangely enough she did not fire. Just as her 
finger seemed about to touch the trigger, she 
gripped her rifle and sent it crashing to the 
floor, while she danced about the room in a 
rage. 

“Why — what-" Curlie stared at her in 

speechless stupefaction. 

“ Something happened just as I was ready to 
shoot. His horse stumbled — something, I don't 
know what. He went down and out of sight, 
so I couldn't shoot." 

Above the sound of rushing wind there came 
to their waiting ears the crash of rifle shots, 


“They Have Come” 


193 


yet not one of the bullets struck their cabin. 

Again the girl was at the window. This time 
her face turned white. She seemed about to 
faint. For a brief time she stood there waver¬ 
ing. Then the color came rushing back to her 
cheeks. 

“ They've come," she breathed. “ The cow¬ 
boys from the ranch have come. We are safe. 
Ambrosio is gone. They shot him. I could not 
see them for the standstorm. We are safe! 
Safe!" 

A great joy appeared to well up from her very 
soul as she knelt beside Curlie to whisper these 
words. Then, with a sudden cry, as if discov¬ 
ering something terrible for the first time, she 
exclaimed: 

“Your wound!" 

Immediately she bent over Him and began to 
tear away the clothing above his wound. In 
that instant, as her face came close to his and 
the dawn brightened almost into day, he recog¬ 
nized her for the first time. His lips framed 
the name they could not utter: 


194 The Desert Patrol 

“ Viola Martin.” 

Then the cabin walls began to whirl madly 
about him. This lasted but for a second, then 
all was peace and sleep. The shock of the 
wound, his loss of blood, had done their work; 
he had lapsed into unconsciousness. From this 
unconsciousness he was not to emerge for many 
hours. 

“ Perhaps never,” whispered the girl, as some¬ 
thing very like a sob escaped her lips. 


CHAPTER XXI 

OLD BALDIE’S REVENGE 

Ambrosio was not dead. He was not so much 
as wounded. His horse had been shot from 
beneath him and he had been thrown headfore¬ 
most into the sand. That was all. At the 
instant he scrambled to his feet a black stallion 
whose rider had been shot or thrown came gal¬ 
loping by. With a desperate sprint the young 
outlaw caught up with him and seized his dang¬ 
ling bridle rein. Then, with an acrobatic swing, 
he threw himself into the saddle. Bullets rained 
about him, yet not one of them touched so much 
as a hair of his head. It seemed that he bore 
a charmed life. And perhaps his life was 
charmed — who knows? Perhaps he was being 
saved by the fates for that which followed. In 
this world of many strange and mysterious 
influences one can never tell. One thing was 
195 


196 THe Desert Patrol 

certain. Weaponless and alone, he deserted 
his comrades and rode away through the sand 
fog toward the Mexican border. 

As for Clyde Hopkins, after fleeing from the 
band of Mexican raiders he turned Snowball 
to face the storm and rode slowly toward the 
ranch which he had left when he first joined 
Curlie Carson. He was low in spirit, very low 
indeed. He felt like a young lieutenant who 
had been trusted with a detachment of sol¬ 
diers and had lost them all and was making his 
way slowly and alone back to headquarters. 

“ No, not quite alone/’ he breathed as he 
patted the white mane of Snowball admiringly. 
“ One pair of eyes will brighten when they see 
us coming home.” 

Nevertheless, the loss of the drove sat heavily 
on his shoulders. Three times, in indecision, 
he halted his pony to ponder the wisdom of 
turning back and attempting to outwit the Mexi¬ 
cans and get back the horses. Each time his 
better judgment prevailed and he rode on toward 
home. 


Old Baldie’s Revenge 197 

“ Ten or twelve of them, all well mounted 
and armed to the teeth/’ he told himself with 
a sigh. “ What chance would one lone cow¬ 
boy have with them? ” 

So for two hours he rode on in the teeth 
of the sandstorm. Now as his hat grew heavy 
with sand he took it off to flop it against his 
pony’s side. Now he dismounted to rub the 
sand from around the pony’s eyes and now 
paused to turn about and sit for a time with 
his back to the gale. 

“ No hurry,” he told himself. “ Good news 
needs swift-winged messengers; bad news can 
wait.” 

But what was this? As he sat thus resting 
his pony, he caught the dull thud of hoofbeats 
on the sand. 

“ Drat ’em! ” he muttered. “ What do they 
want? Have they followed me all this way to 
take my very mount away from me, to take 
you, Snowball? Well, that’s once they’ll fail. 
You’re fairly fresh and we can beat ’em, Snow¬ 
ball, beat ’em! ” 


198 The Desert Patrol 

Of his own accord the white pony wheeled 
about and was away like a flash. There fol¬ 
lowed such a race as Clyde had never in his 
life experienced. Over smoking sand dunes, 
through little clumps of sage, around danger¬ 
ous growths of cactus, they sped. Now plung¬ 
ing down a shifting slope of sand and now 
plodding up a steep ascent to plunge down again, 
they raced. It was a race for the freedom of 
Snowball and for the very life of Clyde, or so 
Clyde thought of it and so Snowball must have 
thought, too, if one were to judge by the way 
she raced forward. 

Ever as he shot onward through the sand 
fog, Clyde turned his head to listen behind him. 
And ever he caught the thud-thud of horses’ 
feet. At first it seemed to him that there must 
be many horsemen riding almost abreast. But 
as the time passed, as the race stretched out 
into a mile, two miles, three, four, five, he 
heard the group indistinctly and yet more indis¬ 
tinctly, until at last they were lost to him en¬ 
tirely, and there came the even thud-thud of a 


Old Baldie’s Revenge 199 

single charger's hoofbeats on the sand. 

“ Snowball,” he half sobbed at last, as he 
realized that the lone horse was gaining on 

them, that in time he must overtake them, “ I 
thought you were a swift pony. And you are, 
one of the swiftest and surest of all the desert, 
but the horse that villain is riding is a fiend 
for speed, a very devil with wings.” 

As he neared an especially tall clump of 
cactus, he slowed his pony down to a walk, 

then, swinging him about until he was all but 
hid by the cactus, brought him to a standstill. 

“ No use using up every ounce of your 
strength,” he whispered. “ He’s going to catch 
us anyway and we might as well take a chance. 
There’s only one cartridge left in my rifle, but 
that’s enough for him if I’m steady and lucky. 
There are any number of them following, but 
if we can get rid of this pestiferous mosquito, 
perhaps we can outride the rest.” 

So, with rifle ready, he sat in his saddle wait¬ 
ing. Ten seconds passed. The thud of hoof¬ 
beats grew louder. Twenty seconds; it seemed 


200 The Desert Patrol 

that the rider must be upon them. Thirty, 
forty and — a golden head of a sorrel with a 
white spot between his eyes appeared around 
the clump of cactus. He was headed straight 
on — did not see the white pony and his rider 
at all. 

The next instant, with an exclamation of sur¬ 
prise Clyde dropped his rifle to the pommel of 
his saddle. The horse was bridleless, saddleless 
and riderless. One word came to the boy’s lips: 

“ Baldie! ” 

It was indeed Old Baldie, the king of his 
kind, the outlaw of the mountains. How had 
he eluded the Mexicans? Who could tell? Here 
he was and alone. No, not alone. He had out¬ 
distanced the others, but their hoofbeats could 
even now be heard in the distance. 

At once the young cowboy’s mind was busied 
with a fresh problem. Were these hoofbeats 
that second by second grew louder the sound of 
the mounts of the Mexicans who were pursuing 
Baldie in the notion that they could head him 
off and drive him back, or had the whole drove 


201 


Old Baldie's Revenge 

of horses and ponies, led by the dauntless Baldie, 
escaped their captors and were they making the 
best of their way back to the mountains? 

At first Clyde was inclined to believe that 
safety lay in further flight, but at last, having 
felt the heave of Snowball’s sides, he settled 
back in the saddle, to mutter, “ I’ll take a 
chance.” 

As for Baldie, he had not gone a hundred 
yards beyond the clump when he began slowing 
up. It was as if he had missed something and 
was hesitating, with the possible intention of 
turning back. 

“What do you know about that?” Clyde 
whispered to his mount. “ The old rascal has 
been trailing us, trailing us like a dog. Now 
he misses our trail. See if he finds us.” 

Holding quite still in his saddle, he waited. 
The thunder of hoofbeats grew louder. Baldie 
had stopped and faced half about. Then from 
behind the clump of cactus there appeared the 
straining nostrils of a brown pony. This one 
was followed by another and yet another until 


202 


The Desert Patrol 


there were at least forty of them, every one of 
them riderless. 

“ The drove! ” Clyde whispered in high glee. 
“ Leave it to Old Baldie to lead them out of 
Egypt into the promised land! ” 

It was true. The greater number of the drove 
were here. Some few, the weaker ones, eight or 
ten in all, had been either killed or captured, 
but here the rest were and Old Baldie was still 
their leader. 

Clyde was just considering the necessity of 
getting behind them and of urging them on to¬ 
ward a position of greater safety when the 
sand fog, having lifted for a moment, gave him 
sight of the twin peaks of Saddle Mountain. 

“ Now I know where we are! ” he rejoiced. 
“We are nearly home. We are safe in God’s 
country. No Mexican would dare venture this 
close to Bill McKee’s ranch.” 

At this instant his attention was attracted by 
the action of Baldie. He had righted straight 
about with his tail toward his followers. With 
head high, with nostrils distended as if he 


Old Baldie’s Revenge 203 

might be listening with them, he was pointing 
toward the north. As Clyde strained his ears 
he too caught the thud-thud of the hoofbeats 
of a single horse. 

“Who can it be?” he asked himself as he 
once more settled back in his saddle and took 
a firmer grip on his rifle. 

He had not long to wait, for soon, out of the 
fog, there appeared the head of a black stallion. 
And mounted on that stallion was a rider. 

“ Ambrosio!” Clyde whispered as if doubting 
his own eyes. “ Ambrosio alone! ” 

He lifted his rifle for a quick, sure shot. 
Then he dropped it once more to his pommel. 

“ No, Snowball,” he whispered, “ he's un¬ 
armed. One does not shoot even a serpent 
like him when he has no means of defending 
himself.” 

But what was this? Baldie, with ears far 
back, with lips back from his teeth as if in a 
snarl, charged straight at the new arrival. Be¬ 
fore the surprised Ambrosio could turn his 
mount about, the two horses had reared upon 


204 


The Desert Patrol 


their hind feet and had plunged straight at one 
another in deadly combat. 

Clyde sat watching spellbound. What could 
be the reason for Baldie’s action? Had he 
recognized in this black stallion an ancient rival 
of the range? Had he merely been surprised 
into this attack by the suddenness of the ar¬ 
rival? Had he seen in Ambrosio the boy who 
had attempted to trap him and, having failed, 
had aimed his rifle to kill him? Who could tell? 
Who knows what goes on in a super-horse’s 
brain? Here was a fight to the finish; that was 
enough. 

Once, twice, three times they reared and 
struck. All this time Ambrosio, clinging to his 
saddle, made desperate efforts to turn the black 
steed about and to continue his flight. All his 
efforts were in vain. Mad with rage, the two 
stallions fought desperately. 

And now a strange thing happened. As 
Baldie reared higher than before, as he struck 
high and hard, Ambrosio suddenly crumpled in 
his saddle and slid to the sand. There, trampled 


205 


Old Baldie’s Revenge 

upon by both horses, he lay motionless. 

“ Can't stand for that, even if he is an 
enemy," Clyde murmured as he lifted his rifle 
and carefully aimed his last shot. 

“ Just to stun, not to kill,” he whispered. 

Came a time when, for a second, the foaming 
head of the black stallion was at rest. In that 
second, Clyde's rifle cracked and the horse, like 
a felled ox, sank to the sand. 

“ Hope I didn't shoot too low," Clyde mur¬ 
mured as, dismounting, he hurried toward the 
scene of the tragedy. 

“Nope," he breathed; “creased him, that’s 
all. He'll be up in a minute. Now, let's see 
about Ambrosio." 

For a moment he bent over the fallen outlaw. 
The next he straightened up with a low ex¬ 
clamation of surprise: 

“ Mashed his head in like an eggshell. Am¬ 
brosio is dead. Old Baldie did for him, and I 
can’t say but it was right. All he’s got com¬ 
ing now is a desert burial." 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE WHISPERER’S MYSTERIES 
REVEALED 

When Curlie Carson awoke from that strange 
sleep, which was really not sleep at all but un¬ 
consciousness, the unconsciousness that had 
overcome him after he had been wounded in the 
radio station and the Whisperer had told him 
that the cowboys had come and that they were 
safe, he heard the song of birds and smelled the 
faint perfumes of roses. Knowing that there 
were neither birds nor flowers about his cabin 
on the desert, he guessed that he had been car¬ 
ried to Bill McKee’s ranch and that days might 
have passed since that eventful morning when 
he had been wounded and had discovered that 
the Whisperer was none other than Viola 
Martin. 

All of these conclusions were correct, but 
206 


The Whisperer's Mysteries Revealed 207 

when he had wanted to talk about them he had 
been told that the doctor’s orders were that he 
should not talk. 

Two days later, as he wakened from a re¬ 
freshing sleep, feeling strong enough to get up 
and walk out upon the desert, he was informed 
by the Whisperer, who sat by his side, that he 
was indeed much better and that the doctor had 
said that if there was anything he wished espe¬ 
cially to talk to her about, he might do it. 

Curlie turned his face on the pillow until he 
could look at the Whisperer. The girl he saw 
formed a strange contrast with the “ Avenging 
Angel ” whom he had seen out there in the 
desert cabin; yet she was undoubtedly the same 
girl, for there were still the thousand freckles 
adorning a round face. There, too, were the 
frank blue eyes and the smiling lips that could 
belong to no other save the Whisperer. Her 
chaps were gone. In their place was a modest 
house dress. Her hair, no longer torn into wild 
tufts by the wind, was done in a graceful roll 
over her white forehead. 


208 


The Desert Patrol 


“I — why I — ” he hesitated. “I don’t 
think there is much I care to talk about, but,” 
his tone became eager, “ I should like very much 
to have you talk, to have you begin at the be¬ 
ginning and tell me all the secrets of your 
strange haunting of the air in such a way as 
has brought me many a bit of good luck, not 
the least of which is at last the finding of you.” 

She blushed a little as she took a chair by his 
side and began the story of her life as it had 
been lived since her whisper first broke in upon 
his listening ears, way back in the secret tower 
in Chicago. 

“ You probably know,” she said, “ that I am 
an orphan, that my father died on this ranch 
and that I have lived most of my life since then 
in this place. Well, about a year ago, an uncle 
of mine, who was supposed to be rich, discovered 
that I was living out here and wrote for me to 
join him in Chicago. 

“ Since he was my only living relative, I 
thought I should go. So did Mr. McKee. I 
went. It was not long I lived with my uncle 


The Whisperer's Mysteries Revealed 209 

before I began to feel that he was not altogether 
the man he should be. He was kind and gen¬ 
erous with me, but I discovered that he had a 
powerful radiophone equipment in his private 
rooms in the big hotel in Chicago, and that he 
was using it in unlawful ways for doubtful pur¬ 
poses. 

“ Shortly after discovering this, I learned, 
through secret channels, of your station. I 
was told something about you and the work you 
were trying to do; so, while I did not desert 
my uncle, because I hoped to make him see the 
harm he was doing, I did get in touch with you 
and did try to help you in preventing him from 
doing actual harm to the Service. 

“ I went with him on that terrible trip north, 
along the Yukon Trail and up to the Arctic. 
When I knew you were following us, I did all 
I could to help you, for I knew by that time that 
it was only a matter of a few weeks, at most, 
until my uncle would be brought to justice.” 

“ But, but — at the shore of the Arctic you 
disappeared,” put in Curlie. 


210 


The Desert Patrol 


“ Yes,” she smiled a little sadly. “ I knew 
that my uncle was at the end of his rope; that 
I could do no more for him. Up to that time, 
rascal though he was, I had done everything 
I could to make his life comfortable. He was 
crazy about jewels and nothing could bring him 
to reason. I had an aged Eskimo with me and 
an extra dog team. The Eskimo took me back 
to his home and then to Fairbanks, where I 
caught the first boat down the river in the 
spring.” 

“ And then you came back to the desert — 
your home?” 

“ There was no other place to go.” 

“ And here I have found you.” 

“ Here you found me — or perhaps I found 
you,” she smiled as she crossed her hands in 
her lap. 

For some time Curlie lay listening to the 
song of birds. 

At last he whispered, “Ambrosio?” 

“ He is dead.” 

“The cowboys?” 


The Whisperer's Mysteries Revealed 211 

“ No. Old Baldie killed him. He had his 
revenge.” 

After that there was another story to tell, 
the story of Baldie’s fight with Ambrosio and 
the black stallion. By the time this was done, 
the doctor came in and told the Whisperer that 
her hour was up and that she must go. 

Three weeks later Curlie Carson stood in the 
gateway to Bill McKee’s ranch. In his hand 
was a brand new suit case. He was on his way 
to another adventure. 

“ Better just stay with us and settle down,” 
said McKee. His arm was on the Whisperer’s 
shoulder. “ Just settle down with us and grow 
up with the West.” 

Curlie took one long look at the honest 
rancher, who had been very kind to him, and 
at the flushed face and eager blue eyes of the 
Whisperer, then he turned his face away. 

“ I am an adventurer,” he said huskily. “ I 
guess it’s in my blood. My ancestors were 
Norsemen. I have discovered a new and strange 
task that promises to lead to adventure. I have 


212 


The Desert Patrol 


said I would undertake it. I cannot turn back. 
But if ever the time comes when I feel that I 
can settle down and live the simple and quiet 
life, you can bet your last pair of shoes it will 
be right here on Bill McKee’s ranch and I 
hope the Whisperer may be here too.” 

“ Don’t be too sure of that last,” smiled the 
rancher, “ and don’t wait too long.” 

With these words and a friendly farewell, 
Curlie turned his back on the ranch where he 
had known happy days. The desert radio 
station was now an assured success. Other 
operators had been put in charge of it. The 
days of Curlie’s promoting in this territory were 
over. He had learned of a new invention and 
was eager to try it out. But of these experiences 
we cannot tell in this book. They must wait 
for that other book, which is to be named 
“ The Sea-Going Tank.” 

As Curlie sped along on the railroad that 
afternoon, he saw a rider on a black stallion lop¬ 
ing down the dusty road and imagined it might 
be Clyde on the horse that had become his at the 


The Whisperer's Mysteries Revealed 213 

death of Ambrosio and which had come to take 
the place of Colie. As he looked away at Saddle 
Mountain, he saw in his mind’s eye the golden 
gleam of a sorrel king of horses as he wandered 
free in the mountains, and murmured, “ Old 
Baldie. I am glad they let him go free.” 

When Curlie’s train carried him across the 
mountains and out over the broad, fertile 
prairies, he fancied that he had seen and heard 
the last of the Whisperer and he did not feel 
at all happy about it. 

“ Almost rather never have discovered her,” 
he grumbled to himself. 

He need not have worried about it. He had 
not seen the last of the Whisperer — not by a 
long way. 































































































































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